The Sunken Mausoleum (Crossover)
by ADarknessWithin
Summary: The Titans are older. While investigating a broken and dark gothic town by the name of Bizenghast, Beast Boy is contracted by a Mausoleum to free ghosts trapped in their own nightmares with Raven's help. Robin and Starfire help Batman in Gotham, leaving Cyborg to man Jump City. How is this all connected to a former foe? Some romance worked in. Violent horror and dark themes abound.
1. The Coming Storm

I do not own Teen Titans, nor do I own Bizenghast. They belong to their respective owners, and all I can claim credit for are the concepts presented in this story. For future reference, all non DC Comics-verse scenarios depicted in the story are of my own invention.

* * *

The Sunken Mausoleum - Ch. 1

As it began, much had changed for the famed heroes of Jump City, yet things remained the same in most ways. They still lived in the Tower, still went on missions, and still bickered over the laundry and whose turn it would be to get the last slice of pizza. The biggest substantial change of course was the newfound couple status between Robin and Starfire (yet not so newfound any more, as this had happened about three years ago). This resulted in the two of them acting much more as a couple should, perhaps due to Starfire's penchant to adopt as many Earth customs as possible in order to fit in; Robin seemed to be dragged along for the ride, not that he minded much.

Cyborg had just turned twenty, something that did not go unnoticed as now he could really no longer be called a 'Teen' Titan, per se. The team had decided in order to be fair to everyone that until Beast Boy, the youngest, was close enough to turning twenty that they would drop the first half of the name and simply go as the Titans. Overall the team's skills and prowess at taking down enemies allowed for a much more peaceful time in Jump City, as villains both subsided their attacks and the heroes would only need to respond to them in pairs of two or three at times of greater need.

This fact did not go unnoticed by the Justice League, who began deliberating and negotiating with Robin in order to see if perhaps they would have time to begin training a new, younger set of Teen Titans, while perhaps sending some of the team across the country on special missions. Robin was thrilled and overwhelmed with all this responsibility, something that was plainly obvious to all of his teammates, but especially Raven. Her abilities as an empath allowed her to sense the battle going on in Robin's head as he attempted to plan out every detail of everyone's lives; she spent most of her time away from him these days, not wanting to get a headache. That is, unless he wanted her wise opinion on some of these matters, in which case she politely sat and endured the waves of stress he gave off. It was in one of these meetings between herself and Robin that he gave her the news.

"Raven, there's something else I wanted to run by you... I've been discussing things with Batman and he's been having some issues with the Joker lately, and he requested some help. I was hoping you'd be available to go on a mission I was meant to do with Starfire, but I need time to help him research things from here with Cyborg. Think you can handle it? I know Star will be upset, is all..." he trailed off, feeling guilty for doing the "cutting of the couple time" as Starfire would phrase it.

Raven exhaled. More roiling hormonal emotions to deal with, except the alien princess managed to multiply her feelings tenfold the normal dosage one would expect from a teen girl. Reluctantly, Raven nodded her head.

"What does this mission involve?" she deadpanned. Robin bit his lower lip, handing her a file folder with a briefing inside. Seems like he counted on her participation already, Raven huffed internally. Before she even had a chance to open the folder and read the papers properly, Robin began talking.

"It has to do with sightings of someone browsing around one of Slade's old lair... We monitor any of his old hangouts, but this one has been showing signs of life, at least, that someone has been there doing something. Cy's scanners pick up sudden spiked disturbances in the air temperatures and although the cameras aren't picking up anything, things seem to be moving around even when we stare right at them, almost as if in an illusionary manner... You know, with your magic and stuff, maybe this is a better mission for you after all. I kinda promised I'd go with Star just because, well, you know..." he trailed off again sheepishly.

Raven smirked and set the folder down as she stood up. "When do we start?"

x.x.x.x.x

"Most of the disturbances seem to be occurring in what seems to be Slade's records and books. Not sure why, because you'd assume his more valuable information would be stored somewhere on an encrypted technological device. Whatever's goin' on, it's all been in this area" Cyborg pointed on the electronic map on the screen towards a specific area of Slade's lair, while Starfire and Raven made mental notes and observations of what they should be looking for.

"Just try to see if anyone's there messing with our equipment, and if they are... Well, you know what to do" Cyborg finished, closing the map and the girls took that as their cue to leave. Cyborg had assumed the role of second in command as Robin dealt with more and more Justice League related business, and he honestly didn't mind all that much. It made him feel a bit better about himself, more important than just the brainy brawny pile of circuits that he was stereotyped as.

As Raven and Starfire took off, Cyborg realized that he'd be freed up this afternoon to spend some quality time gaming with his best green bud, something that neither titan had the privilege of doing much of in these more recent times. Beast Boy, in fact, had been assigned to patrol and scout the city for potential new recruits, and was almost never around for any down time. This was taking its toll on the green changeling, but perhaps maturing him in a way. He no longer whined constantly about trivial things, something that Raven especially had begun to appreciate.

Raven and Starfire, floating across the buildings of Jump City towards the remnants of Slade's old lair, were engaging in the "girl talk" as Starfire liked to call it, and Beast Boy happened to be one of the topics.

"So you do not think that friend Beast Boy has become attractive? Most curious, Raven, as you are frequently engaging in conversation with him whenever he's around"the Tamaranian said.

"Just because I have friendly conversation does not mean I'm attracted to him" Raven muttered back. "He's becoming much easier to deal with, that's all"

"But I never asked if you were attracted to him, simply if you thought he had grown into an attractive man" Starfire said with a small smile. Raven blanched.

"That's... Ugh, Starfire, let's not talk about this and focus on the mission" she said, pointing to the decrepit mass of caved in metal which was Slade's old lair.

The two female titans entered the wreckage cautiously, Starfire's eyes glowing green to provide some light in the newfound shadow. Raven was on alert, as perhaps at any moment she would have to phase Starfire and herself into the ground if some of the metal and rubble came crashing down. They made their way through the structure, towards the record keeping room. Raven held her hand out and encased them both in her dark energy, slipping them into the room and remaining shrouded by her magic. Then they waited.

It did not take long, and at precisely 3:33 (something that alarmed Raven, but she stored the information away for future inspection) the temperature descended to a chilly air that rattled their very bones. A figure emerged from the opposite end of the room; he or she was cloaked, their robe a tattered dark brown which concealed their identity and gender. The person seemed to walk with a gait that Raven (damn you, Beast Boy, and your influences) could only describe as zombielike, making effort to step towards the tables full of books and scrolls kept and then abandoned by Slade.

Starfire nudged her, wanting her to reveal themselves in order to confront the person, but she shook her head no. She wanted to see what this thing was looking for. It finally reached the table, pushing aside scrolls that seemed to have no meaning to the entity. It picked up books, mediocre looking and blank covered, some with runed inscriptions, but tossed them aside as if they were of no consequence at all. All of this was transpiring rather quickly, Raven noticed, as it was still only 3:34. The thing suddenly stopped it's shuffling, its hands around a book that seemed to mean something to it. It turned the book over in its hands a few times, flipping the pages, and then quickly making to tuck it away into its cloak. It was then that Raven lowered her shield.

"Drop it" she deadpanned, her black magic reaching out to grasp the book before it could hide it. Starfire readied her starbolts.

"Tell us what your use of this book is, creature, and you will not be destroyed!" she proclaimed. The creature cocked its head in a way that could only be menacing, before its cloak opened and it sent out volleys of what looked like bloody and rusty bits of wire, which Starfire immediately zapped with her eyebeams. She hurled volleys of starbolts at the thing, which had sluggishly made its way back into the corner of shadow it had emerged from.

Raven made to follow it, but it sent out another wave of those wires, one which caught Starfire on the thigh. The alien screamed in agony, and Raven turned to sever it with a wave of her obsidian light. By the time she turned back to face the creature, it was gone. Placing the book on the floor next to her as she kneeled to heal Starfire, she gasped. The wound inflicted by the wire seemed to have festered and become putrid with decay in a matter of seconds. Raven grimaced, muttering a healing mantra as her cooling blue magic passed over Starfire's orange skin, healing and knitting the skin back together as if it were good as new.

"Friend Raven, I thank you. But what was that horrible monster? I have a sense of foreboding" Starfire said as she got to her feet. Raven stood with her, clutching the book.

"Perhaps this holds some answers" was her reply, and with that she phased them out of there.

x.x.x.x.x.x

Upon inspection of the book, something done with all 5 Titans present, Cyborg's scanners came up with nothing initially. "Well, the book doesn't seem to hold anything particularly supernatural at a glance" the tin man said. Raven nodded in agreement.

"There's no magical signature that I can perceive" she said.

"Then why did that thing want to possess it so?" Starfire inquired curiously. "I have never seen a simple attack so viciously dangerous" she continued, and Robin glanced down at her perfectly healed leg with a shiver as he imagined what could have been there on his girlfriend's thigh if it weren't for Raven.

"Maybe it just wanted a history lesson" Beast Boy piped up, as he flipped through the pages of the book without rhyme or reason. "Nothing in this book seems to be anything important, it's all just the history of an area in the Northeast."

"Then we'll just have to do this the hard way. Read up about everything in the book and find something that strikes us as... well, off" Robin said, determined to figure out the mystery behind the person or creature that attacked his girl, what they wanted with this book, and what they could do to stop any more potential attacks.

"Not it!" Beast Boy and Cyborg shouted simultaneously, while Raven rolled her eyes.

"I'm assuming the task will be mine, then?" she spoke in her signature monotone, snatching the book from Beast Boy. "I am the only one of us here that actually enjoys a good book."Robin dipped his head in agreement.

"Let me know what you find, Raven. I'll try to help you out by scanning any images for locations and cities in the meantime. Cyborg, forward me your scan of the book but filter out all of the superfluous text."

"So you just want the pictures? You got it, bird brain" Cyborg said with a grin, while Robin slapped his forehead in despair.

Raven had already made her way towards the couch to begin her perusal of the book, and Starfire was ushered off to her room for some R&R by her boyfriend, who then turned on his heel to head to his office in order to begin his work (not without a lengthy kiss from Starfire to send him off, however, which made him reluctant to begin his task).

Beast Boy sat on the couch next to Raven, watching her as she read for a little while. So focused on her task, Raven hardly was made aware of this as he kept quite still. She was very concentrated and at the same time peaceful, Beast Boy observed, something he admired in her at this moment when she seemed completely in her comfort zone. If only the book were more interesting, perhaps Beast Boy might have asked her something about it. They had grown closer once everything in the past few years had transpired; the End of the world was only the beginning for them.

Raven had emerged triumphant from this experience as a partially changed woman, much more tolerant and beginning to lose some of the heavily guarded repression she had forced upon herself until she had managed to lock up Rage for good and keep her under her utmost control. Beast Boy had indeed grown and matured, but the spark of this was something completely different (and something that irked Raven to no end, although she would never admit it).

Terra's return was a shock and a revelation to Beast Boy, as she had denied her identity when he had found her at Murakami High School and left him without any hope of reconciling with her. However, old habits die hard, and Terra couldn't shake her earthen powers (or what was left of them) completely, nor could she deny her place as a Teen Titan. She came out of hiding and revealed that she now had a lesser amount of potency when it came to her earth powers, but they were still there. She wanted to join the Titans again, perhaps to get another shot at her own life, perhaps another shot at the green changeling.

Whatever her reasons were, Raven did not like them, and advised Robin to send her to the Titans East. Robin took her advice, and to their great surprise Beast Boy agreed with the decision. Her rejection of him at the High School had stung, perhaps enough for him to realize that he needed to move on. He also felt that she would be better off with new people to bond with, something that Robin echoed in his decision once he informed the geomancer.

Terra accepted his jurisdiction, and over time spent in Steel City with the other Titans, she became not only an invaluable asset to their team, but developed a relationship with another elementalist. She and Aqualad had been going strong for a few years now, something that contented everyone, even Raven, although once again she showed complete indifference.

That indifference was what interested Beast Boy. He wondered what was going through her head, his boyish curiosity of the past having matured into something which he could not yet put his finger on. She looked up from her reading, making eye contact with the green boy.

"I think I might have an idea as to what we need to look into" she said, flipping the book around to reveal a page with a picture of a strange looking gothic boarding school. Beast Boy scooted closer, their sides touching as he took the other side of the book in order to examine it more closely.

"St. Lyman's School for Boys" he read out loud. His eyes were drawn to another photo, one of a very severe looking woman, 'Governess Addie Clark.' In her hands was a portrait of... herself. In the portrait of herself, she was holding a book, and on the cover of this book was a strange looking symbol. It looked like some sort of spidery insect with a spiraled tail, yet instead of a head it had a clock. Beast Boy shivered, as it gave him the creeps.

"There's something weird about that place" he muttered, and Raven nodded. Just then, Robin ran into the room holding what looked to be a printout of a newspaper clipping. He skidded to a halt in front of the two Titans, thrusting the newspaper clipping at them.

"The Second Graveyard" he panted. "A mysterious graveyard, sighted by hikers and hunters, it only appears sporadically, and all evidence of it really existing... well, doesn't exist. It's got to be what this thing is looking for, it sounds like a magical or spectral type of place. In a town called..."

"Bizenghast" Raven intercepted him, flipping the book around once more so that her leader could see what they had found. "Looks like we've got a lead."

* * *

There you have it. Even if you don't have the slightest clue as to what Bizenghast is, never fear! All will be explained (by me) throughout the story. It can be enjoyed by all who appreciate Teen Titans, gothic horror, or horror in general. And of course, all you people who enjoyed Bizenghast will get a kick out of this story as well. :) I'll be posting it in the crossover section as well as the Teen Titans one, so as to appeal to a wider audience.


	2. The Stranglehold

I do not own Teen Titans, nor do I own Bizenghast. They belong to their respective owners, and all I can claim credit for are the concepts presented in this story. For future reference, all non DC Comics-verse scenarios depicted in the story are of my own invention.

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The Sunken Mausoleum - Ch. 2

The distress signal rang out from Robin's communicator and he groggily fumbled for it on the bedside table. He was in Starfire's room that night, hoping that sleeping alongside his girlfriend would allow him a chance for a peaceful night's rest. Starfire was roused by Robin's own shuffling around in the bed, and she turned towards her beloved sleepily.

"What is the matter?" she asked him.

At this point, however, Robin was no longer half asleep. He was wide awake as he stared at the text and data he was receiving on his communicator. Starfire sensed something was wrong, and she too sat up and placed her arm around him in order to peek over his shoulder and read the message. She gasped.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Raven was sipping her morning cup of herbal tea when Beast Boy strode into the common living area, stretching as he walked towards the kitchen. She admired how much he had grown into himself, but only briefly. He headed straight to the fridge and pulled out a container of organic Soymilk, which he began to drink straight from the carton. Raven rolled her eyes.

"Can't you use a cup?" she shot at him.

"I'm the only one who drinks the stuff!" he called back, yet he still reached into one of the cabinets and grabbed a class in order to placate her.

"I drink it sometimes too, you know" she replied smoothly, her lips turning up a little as she saw him pause in his pouring for a moment to look over at her, and then continue while shaking his head smiling.

When Robin entered, Raven immediately dropped her smile. She could tell that something was wrong.

"What is it? Robin, something's not right" she said.

Robin sighed, his shoulders slumping in a defeat that even she had never seen on the leader before.

"Something happened in Gotham, something big. I need to get over there as soon as possible, and I'm bringing Star with me... For help, but also moral support. Jason's dead."

Beast Boy and Raven's eyes widened in shock, and the changeling instantly rushed over to Robin and placed a hand on his shoulder. Raven stood, but made no move towards them. The emotions she was gathering were overwhelming enough as it was. He was referring to Jason Todd, of course, Batman's new apprentice and the new Robin of the bat clan.

"So where does that leave us?" she asked him, ever practical and thinking ahead. Robin and Beast Boy made their way to the table and sat down, causing Raven to follow suit.

"I've been up all night thinking about this. I'm needed in Gotham, and I need Starfire with me. She's a lot tougher than she looks as we all know, so she'll be a big help if it comes to fighting the Joker. He... he's the one that did this" he said in a low voice. Raven's eyes narrowed, and Beast Boy growled deep in his throat.

"I need you two to keep up the investigation on Bizenghast and the book. You'll need to arrange some way to travel to the city to snoop around, hopefully find out what we need to know and find that second graveyard. Cyborg will be ok looking after the Tower for a few days on his own, he has backup if he needs it from Central City or the Titans East."

Beast Boy, although saddened to hear of the death of the younger Robin, was enthralled by the possibility of working on this case and going on an actual mission. To top it off, he would be working closely with Raven, and Raven alone. The thought sent a jolt of excitement and a thrill down his spine, something that did not go unnoticed by the empath, who gave him a look.

Starfire and Cyborg then entered the common area, Starfire holding a pink bag with a few possessions and what looked like one of Robin's utility packs filled with a few clothes and other necessities.

"Wait, you're leaving NOW?" Beast Boy exclaimed. Robin looked irritated.

"Yes, now. Alfred's sent a car to pick us up and drive us to the airport. Cyborg, take it from here. And guys..." he paused as he stood up, grabbing his bag from the alien princess, "keep me posted. And good luck."

With that, he and Starfire said their goodbyes to the rest of the Titans and left. Once they were gone, Cyborg sat the other two down again for a 'serious talk' which involved their mission.

"Here are some disks with all the information we know on the case, download them into your communicators. They'll automatically update for me, and for the both of you if any of the three of us inputs any new findings into it. Also..." he paused and popped open one of his storage compartments in his arm.

"I've made you two holographic rings, in order for you to blend in to the town if you have to do some legitimate undercover scouting. They should allow you to look as if you were, well... Let me put it this way, one hundred percent non-green human."

The two Titans took their rings and pocketed them, not really wanting to try them on in front of the other. Cyborg raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

"Uh hmm. Well, guys, all I have to say is, be back soon because this Tower's not gonna be the same all by my lonesome. And be careful" he warned them. Raven nodded her head, while Beast Boy stood up and gave a military salute to his best friend, who shook his head and muttered something that sounded like "soybean tripped up grass stain."

With that, they rose and agreed to meet back in the common room in fifteen minutes order to depart for the mysterious town of Bizenghast.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

They reached the outskirts of the town that night, as they had traveled mostly on Beast Boy's newer and improved motorcycle, and in part (whenever she regained her strength from the previous one, of course) using Raven's teleportation skills. She could only take them so far at once, as she had never been to the place before and would not be able to establish a direct connection there until she had set foot in the town.

It was definitely somewhere in New England, as the slightly gothic architecture and foreboding structures mixed both the past and the present time periods into one. Everything seemed to be dreary and as if each shadow was hiding something, a dark secret that the Titans were sure they didn't want to uncover.

There was something distinctly medieval about the buildings, the wooden beams forming crossed X's in front of the houses in order to hold them up, and from what Raven could tell (which was quite difficult, actually) many homes seemed to be abandoned. A rusty old clock-tower loomed in the town's square, and a fountain with eerie looking figures in the center sculpture made Beast Boy turn his face away. Shops and common sights dotted the streets adjacent to them.

No one seemed to be up as they coursed through deserted streets on the silently purring motorbike, and Raven immediately felt ill at ease in this place. She involuntarily clutched her arms around Beast Boy's waist tighter, and they proceeded.

"Let's find St. Lyman's first, then we'll start looking for that graveyard" she spoke up to Beast Boy, who managed to hear her even though they were slightly speeding at this point in order to leave the town's center behind.

Following the GPS on Raven's communicator, Beast Boy maneuvered through the streets and then made a turn past what looked like the only functioning school. Further down, and the road switched to a dirt one. Looming ahead of them and surrounded by sparse trees and underbrush was St. Lyman's. An archway announcing the name of the institution overhung the gateway. Beast Boy drove through it; the place looked abandoned. He parked his bike off to the side, and he and Raven dismounted.

"God, I need to stretch" he moaned, morphing into a snake that wriggled every which way in the grass. Raven levitated into the air and muttered her mantra in order to calm and unwind her tense muscles.

"So, do you think this place has anything to do with the 'Second Graveyard' Robin wants us to find?" Beast Boy said after he had morphed back. Raven, her eyes still closed as if in a trance, nodded.

"I'm picking up a magical signal from this place, and I mean this whole town, like one I haven't ever felt before. It's something really... Well, sinister" she spoke in her monotone, opening her amethyst eyes once more. Beast Boy shivered.

"This place does kind of give me the creeps" he said, looking over at the school. The doors were bolted shut with a fairly fresh looking and hefty padlock. The place had been vacated, and somewhat recently.

"Let's look around the outside first before we break in" Raven said. Beast Boy gave her a look of surprise.

"We're breaking in? Goody goody Raven is BREAKING something of her own free will?" he joked. Raven glared at him, but chose to ignore the comment. She began floating towards the side of the school which would lead to the back, Beast Boy following her close behind. He would never have admitted it straightforwardly, but he was happy that it was Raven who was with him on such a creepy mission. She'd know exactly how to handle anything such as demons or ghosts or whatever the hell they might come up against in a place like this.

"Raven, you know how to ghost hunt, right?" he squeaked out as something seemed to move out of the corner of his eye, although it was probably just a tree... probably. Raven snorted.

"Ghosts would be scared of ME, if they even dared come close" she said confidently, turning around then to flash a small smirk at Beast Boy. He looked kind of... well, cute in his freaked out state. She shook it off and continued around the side of the building.

"Good, because I'm pretty sure that we'll have to use your magic heebie jeebie powers when... AAAHHHHHH!"

Raven was about to chastise him for calling her powers names when his screech caused her to whirl around, black energy dancing at her fingertips. Walking towards Beast Boy at an alarming pace was what looked like a sort of human skeleton. It's shoulders were slumped and it's limbs were elongated, much resembling those of a circus stiltwalker. Patches of dry, leathery skin remained on bits of bone, while it's sunken hollow face produced a hissing sound as the wind passed through it, the lack of vocal cords preventing any real sound.

Raven used her magic to push Beast Boy out of the way, and the Walker made its way straight for her.

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" she cried. The dark energy surrounded it, and it crumpled into a pile of dried skin and ashy bone. "It's a trapped spirit of some sort, I think it's harmless... But I think this means that there must be a graveyard nearby" Raven said to Beast Boy, who was whimpering and flailing nearby. Raven rolled her eyes and motioned for him to follow her.

They finally reached the back of the structure, where as Raven predicted, a smallish graveyard with a few nondescript headstones lay scattered. "This isn't it, the Second Graveyard" Beast Boy said upon inspection. Raven nodded in agreement.

"It holds a lot of sadness and despair, but it's not what we're looking for..." she trailed off.

"Wait!" Beast Boy exclaimed, pointing at one of the headstones. The two Titans drew closer in order to look better, and carved into the top of one of the headstones was the insect-clock insignia that they had seen in the book.

"This MEANS something, I just wish I knew what!" Raven hissed, while Beast Boy took a photo of it with his communicator to add to their mission file. Raven was beginning to sorely miss the heaps and stacks of reference books in her room at the Tower.

"I suppose we should keep moving" she sighed, when suddenly something clenched at her gut, something that wanted to get her attention. "Unnf!" she let out, crumpling to the ground in a moment of pain that she could not describe. Beast Boy was at her side instantly, his arm around her shoulders in order to steady her.

"Raven! What's wrong?" he barked, alarmed.

"Something... in the woods" she gasped. "We need to search the woods." It was a feeling she couldn't place, something familiar was calling out to her, as if it had left a magical imprint that she just KNEW from somewhere, but she couldn't recollect. All she knew was that it was definitely not a pleasant memory.

"Rae, come on. Let's get you up" Beast Boy said, helping her to her feet. His arms were still around her, strong and steadying. She gave him an appreciative look before detaching herself from him.

"Let's go."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

The trek through the dark woods was something Beast Boy did not enjoy, and he thanked heaven that Raven was there with him. Even she, the 'creepy' Titan, was ten times less creepy than their surroundings. There was no real trail to speak of, every once in a while a fallen tree or some sort of path would cause them to change their route.

It was a silent walk, for the forest was oppressive and seemed to steal the will to speak from the Titan's mouths. Beast Boy itched for some sort of comfort, and found himself wanting to reach out and grab the gray girl by the hand. He resisted, however, as he didn't want to endure something like an emotionally charged Raven in a situation like this.

"The trees surround the entire town, from what I read in the book" Raven spoke up suddenly. "All of Bizenghast is encircled by forest."

"They wouldn't have thought to clear some of it out? Make it a little more cheery?" Beast Boy stammered, his voice cracking a little at the end.

"Guess not. From our online research it's said the town has less than a hundred inhabitants, too. Probably why it's so... decrepit" she said.

"Yeah, but still! These dudes need to figure out a way of pumping some happy into this place... It's such a drag!" he moaned, thinking of the town they had seen and their adventure through the creepy woods so far.

"Look!" Raven exclaimed, throwing her hand out in front of Beast Boy in order to stop him. Upon seeing the pile, he instinctively reached for her hand and gave it a tight squeeze. She didn't pull away, their eyes wide as they stared at it.

A massive pile of miscellaneous antiques and broken artifacts stood in their path, blocking the way that they were heading. The two Titans began to walk towards it, looking for a way around it.

"How the hell did all this... What is all this shit?!" Beast Boy said, exasperated. This place was getting weirder by the minute. Raven, still clutching his hand, attempted to levitate some of it with her dark magic. Anything she touched seemed to crumble to dust upon entering in contact with her obsidian power.

"Remnants and excrement of a time long past. Ghost artifacts" she whispered back to him, in awe. She had never seen so much of it in one place. "We need to fly over it. I think we're on to something."

She then took off, levitating herself into the air as Beast Boy transformed into an owl, able to see better in the dark that way. They flew over the immense pile of junk, the trees still shrouding their vision and they were unable to break through the dense canopy and foliage above them. Raven's sense of foreboding was growing, and she didn't like it.

Once the junk pile had thinned considerably, they landed on the other side of it. It was seemingly on the edge of what looked to be a hill. "What could be over the hill?" Beast Boy moaned, wanting to grab Raven's hand again as it was a source of comfort for him in the darkness. They walked upward and upon reaching the top, Beast Boy let out another shriek.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!"

Raven's breath hitched in her throat as she gazed upon it. A jagged looking trail led down from the hill, toward what looked to be two immense towering pillars. The structures seemed to be a sort of horselike statue, with spiny backs and legs that stretched beyond the naturally possible. From that point a legitimate path led through a massive and unbordered graveyard, with headstones that seemed to vary in shape and design. The path ended upon reaching what seemed to be a Gothic structure, a Mausoleum of sorts. It appeared to be sunken into the ground, the rooftop spires and Gothic archways shooting from the earth as if from the depths of Hell itself.

"The Second Graveyard" Raven deadpanned.

They made their way down the jagged path until they reached the two Horse pillars, Beast Boy complaining and moaning the entire way.

"This place is too creepy, we need to get out of here! Let's come back in the morning!" he said for the umpteenth time.

"Shut up, we might not find it again tomorrow!" Raven hissed at him, smacking him on the arm as he opened his mouth again to say something else. With that, she grabbed him by the collar and pulled him past the two pillars, which seemed to stare into his eyes fiercely as he looked up at them. He whimpered, but then realized what a wimp he was behaving like, and in front of Raven no less. He made a mental note to compose himself and put himself into the mission more seriously, shaking off her hand and marching forward onto the pathway that led to the Mausoleum.

"These headstones are some of the most peculiar ones I've ever seen..." Raven mused to herself. One that stood out to her was that of a statue of a woman who seemed to be pulling her own rib cage apart, her expression one of pure terror as her vacant chest cavity was exposed. Raven shivered and moved forward to catch up with Beast Boy.

He was almost at the entrance of the Mausoleum, whose doors were closed and a statue of a Hooded Angel (wearing a cloak much like her own, Raven noted) proffering a flat looking metallic platter remained perched above the doors.

Once Raven had stopped in front of it beside her teammate, and Beast Boy suppressed a yelp at this of course, the two doors pulled themselves open, accompanied by the sound of moving stone. The smell of musty earth drifted their way, and both Titans suppressed their millionth shiver of the night.

"Do we have to go down there?" Beast Boy finally said quietly. As much as Raven wanted to grab him and pull him into a portal and take them home at that moment, she nodded her head.

"Yes."

She felt a gloved hand take hers for the second time that night, and she looked over towards the green changeling who was giving her a small smile. "I'm just glad it's you who'll be down there with me. You're probably used to this stuff!" he joked. Raven glared at him, but her lips betrayed a small smile.

"Come on, let's see what's in that crypt" she said, and they began their descent into the dark.

Impossibly, they emerged shortly after they stepped down a few stairs into what seemed to be an airy room whose ceilings were elevated way beyond the amount of ground they had just descended. Moonlight shone and was magnified by the stained glass that covered the top, and Raven knew instantly that this place had been modified by magic.

"Whoa, it's like a museum in here!" Beast Boy exclaimed, rushing off to look at the various artifacts that lined the room. Gilded ornaments that he had no clue as to their purpose, clocks, books, weaponry and other indescribably beautiful things were scattered throughout. Hallways without destination and without doors led off who knows where, but what Raven was drawn to were a small pile of elegantly covered books sitting beside what looked to be a potions cabinet. She made a beeline for those while Beast Boy continued to browse the room.

"There's some weird shit in this place, Rae... Maybe it's what that thing was looking to get to when it took the book?" Beast Boy called out to his teammate. Something caught his eye, however, and he did not hear her reply. The symbol, in all of it's glory, was painted on a side wall. It was almost as big as he was, and he approached it, noticing a smallish plaque underneath it. At the bottom of the plaque was a black gilded key.

'In stone towers four,

Hooded watcher at the door,

And in alcoves threescore,

Let us be.

Behind glass walls we wait.

On our deeds meditate,

Until some luck or fate

Sets us free.

May you never try to find

What is hidden behind,

But if you're still of that mind,

Look and see.

To know what lies untold

In chambers grown cold,

Let each riddle unfold

To find each key.'

As he read this aloud, Raven suddenly became aware of what he was doing. She was on the other side of the room, a book in her hand, when the temperature in the room began to drop and the magical energy Beast Boy's reading was invoking swirled in a vortex all around him, although he couldn't sense it. She dropped the book and tried to levitate as fast as she could towards him in order to stop him, but it was too late. He had touched the key as he enunciated the last word of the poem, and in doing so the deed was done.

"Beast Boy, no!" she had screeched in vain.

The black symbol painted on the wall split in half with a clicking of gears as Raven reached him, her heart in her throat. He looked confused at her outburst, as a piece of paper had appeared. She scanned the new bit of writing that appeared behind the split wall, the gears locking in place and the ink on the paper behind the symbol drying quick as a flash.

"Having entered the Sunken Mausoleum and activated this contract, the undersigned does hereby agree to be owned body and soul until such time as this Mausoleum's vaults are emptied of captive spirits or by the undersigned's sudden death, whichever comes first." Raven read in her monotone, which changed into a more frantic tone as she progressed through the paper.

"Signed, Garfield Mark Logan."

"WHAT?" Beast Boy roared, staring in disbelief at the paper. His limbs tensed up and he felt as if he were growing weak at the same time. "Raven, please, tell me it's just a trick?"

Raven was shaking, visibly perturbed by the situation. Her eyes glowed white as she invoked her mantra, seemingly in an attempt to rip the contract to shreds with her demonic powers. "They can't make you do this, it's too dangerous, you WON'T do this!" she growled. "Azarath, Metrion Zin-"

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, demoness."

The Titans whirled around. In their shock, they had failed to hear a second clicking of gears as a concave hatch from the ceiling had opened and a creature of some sort descended from it. She was connected to the ceiling as if by wires and cogs, and her sets of long spidery legs connected to form a fanged maw which clicked and snapped at them. The top half of her looked human, a torso clothed in a spiny costume of sorts with jingle bells at the end. Upon her head rested a jester's cap, her slitted eyes mischievous and deadly at the same time. Her blood red lips masked a pair of fangs which were razor sharp from the looks of it.

"AHHHHHHHHHHH" Beast Boy screeched for the millionth time that day. "Who're you?"

"I am Bali-Lali" the creature said in a sing-songy voice that hinted at a venomous quality to it. "Hello Garfield. I'm pleased to meet you, we have been waiting for you."

"Release him from the contract!" Raven growled.

"Cannot do that, demon" Bali-Lali replied, her eyes turning cruelly onto Raven's tense form. "He must fulfill his contract, he is OWNED."

"Then give it to me. I will take his contract" Raven tried desperately.

"Cannot. Your demonic nature would interfere with the dream psyche" Bali-Lali replied, her cryptic answer seeming to make sense only to Raven in part.

"Is there anything I can do to stop this?" she moaned, looking over at Beast Boy with an expression of pure dread.

"Clear the vaults. Wake up the souls trapped there, send them on their way. Solve the riddles. Help him do it, but you must come back every night. And bring me some gold!" she cackled. "Then he will be freed."

As she said this, she was beginning to retract herself back into the hatch she had emerged from. Beast Boy seemed to shake himself out of his stupor, and shouted at her.

"What if I don't do it? What if I don't come back every night, I don't have time for this crap! What's gonna happen?"

Bali-Lali smiled, a smile that it seemed she had perfected over the amount of time she had had to deliver this same speech, practice this same action over the years. Her smile grew into a grimace as her mouth widened, her skin becoming papery thin as it peeled back and from the depths of her dark throat emerged something... green.

Beast Boy and Raven stared in horror as his own face was pushed up through her neck, her jawline having cracked and the skin of her own face having peeled off her skull in order to accommodate the new head, a representation of his own green face if it were dead and rotting in the ground somewhere. His eyes were pulled open, yet the eyeballs themselves were stitched with what looked like uneven sutures. The dead Beast Boy's lips parted and it screamed "YOU WILL DIE!"

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Raven and Beast Boy sat, in silence. They had emerged from the horrific scene in the Sunken Mausoleum both visibly shaken. They sat so that their sides touched, needing the comfort of a warm body. Raven spoke up first.

"I'm not going to let you face this alone."

He looked at her then, his eyes glassy and haunted by the image of his own dead face screaming in an agonizing cry. Silently, he slid his arm through hers and clasped her hand for the third time that day. She gave it a squeeze.

"The first vault awaits."

* * *

Chapter two is down. I'm really enjoying writing this, as sick as it's going to turn out (I've got stuff planned... Hee hee). Next chapter we'll find out what happens in the vault, and perhaps get a little insight as to what Raven and Beast Boy are gonna have to put up with for the next few months until they clear the vaults. Also, they'll have to tell the other Titans about their predicament... That should be fun. Please leave a review, I love feedback!


	3. The Caged Song

I do not own Teen Titans, nor do I own Bizenghast. They belong to their respective owners, and all I can claim credit for are the concepts presented in this story. For future reference, all non DC Comics-verse scenarios depicted in the story are of my own invention.

CHAPTER WARNING: Graphic and descriptive violence; language

* * *

The Sunken Mausoleum - Ch. 3

"Let's just choose a headstone so we can get this over with" Raven spoke to her teammate, their hands still clutching each other tightly as they perused the graveyard and were immediately put off by many of the depictions they came across.

Raven had wanted to immediately contact the others, requesting backup, but she realized that this was something her fellow Titans would not be able to help her with. Cyborg had his duties to tend to in Jump City, as the sole guardian of the place for the time being. Robin and Starfire were preoccupied with the death of someone close to them, and perhaps plotting to take down the Joker, one of the most sought after criminals of all time.

This was something Beast Boy would have had to face alone, so he was thankful she was there. Raven could sense this, too, and sighed. She wished things had turned out differently. If only she had been more alert...

"What about this one?" Beast Boy piped up suddenly, gesturing towards the very headstone that had caught Raven's attention upon their discovery of the graveyard. "Looks... Well, might as well start somewhere" he finished.

The statue of the woman ripping apart her own ribcage with a scream of agony. Raven gave it a wary look, hoping that whatever they were getting themselves into wouldn't involve actually doing that to the woman.

Each headstone, it appeared, was equipped with a riddle that had to be solved before gaining entry into the dreams. The riddle on this one was carved into a plaque at the woman's feet.

"What my eyes were allowed to see

Kept my voice from singing free."

Short but sweet, Raven thought. She stared at the statue for a while, as riddles were something simple to her most of the time. It had to have something to do with the dream they were about to enter, but she would worry about that later. Without warning, it hit her. She levitated herself up towards the mouth of the statue and brought her own lips to it.

"Whoa, Rae... What're you..." Beast Boy stammered, thinking she was about to kiss the screaming lady. He'd always fantasized once or twice about something like this... but NOT like this.

It was then that she opened her lips and let out a single note, her song dancing from her throat into the woman's. It turned out that the statue was hollow, and Raven's singing ricocheted around the cavernous space until it burst through the empty cavity where the lungs should have been.

It was then that the statue's song became a twisted and horrific scream of agony. Beast Boy covered his ears, when suddenly the ground around him crumbled and he fell into a hole.

"AHHHHHHHH! RAVEN! HELP! I'M DYING!"

"...Beast Boy."

"I AGREED TO DO THEIR STUPID SHIT, WHY AM I DYING? GAHHH RAVEN I'M TOO YOUNG!"

"... BEAST BOY!"

"WHAT!"

"Look around, you moron" she deadpanned, floating down to meet him. He had fallen into a trapdoor that had a ladder (which he obviously neglected to use) and was sitting on his butt in front of a wooden door which probably led into the dream.

"Heh heh. I guess I got a little carried away..." he mumbled, standing up beside her as she pushed the door open with her black magic.

"In any case, just hope that nothing happens to us in here" she replied, grabbing his arm and pulling him into the dream.

x.x.x.x.x.x

It was misty for a minute or so, and it felt like they were drifting through a foggy gelatin. It made Beast Boy squirm.

"Yuck, I feel like I'm swimming through Plasmus goo again" he moaned. Raven shushed him.

"Look, I think I see something" she said in a hushed tone. Indeed, there was a dilapidated old cottage nestled through some trees. The fog around them lifted, and they were fully a part of the dream.

"Looks normal enough. Maybe this won't be so bad after all" he said, and definitely a moment too soon. A shrill scream of pain pierced their ears, and it was coming from the cottage.

"Let's go!" Raven said, levitating silently towards the building while beast Boy morphed into a hawk and flew close behind her. They were about to breach the door when suddenly a woman flung herself in front of them waving her arms. She was wearing what appeared to be clothing that looked like something from the 1960s.

"No! Don't!" she hissed. The two Titans stopped abruptly, eyes wide. She looked familiar. "You can't do anything for her, she's done for. He's got her and he can't know I've seen him, that I've found him out..." she whispered, tugging at the the two heroes to pull them out of sight as the screaming continued.

"Seen what? We have to help her, she's screaming for her life!" Beast Boy hissed back frantically, trying to find somewhere to look into the house to find out what was going on. Raven simply observed, still levitating from the ground.

"Ian, he's... He's not well" she said, looking agitated. "The whole town's been wondering about him forever, but no one knows anything except me... And I've only just now figured it out... When the disappearances started, everyone wanted to blame him but they're all too scared..."

"What disappearances?" Beast Boy asked her.

It was then that the screams became screeches of pure agony, and then the girl's voice turned into a cough and a strangled sputter of gaspy breaths. The sounds of her attacker could be discernible now, and Beast Boy moved with the girl in order to look through one of the windows.

On the kitchen table was a blonde woman, she looked about their age. Her eyes had rolled into the back of her head, and blood seemed to be everywhere. Her attacker stood over her, her legs spread apart as he had his way with her on the table. Beast Boy wanted to look away quickly, but that's when he noticed the serrated blade digging into her skin in violent stabs with each of his thrusts. Her skin was being flayed off of her, all the fight left in her vanishing with a gurgle of saliva and blood from her parted lips. With that, he finished and proceeded to take a heavy looking brick and bash in her skull.

Beast Boy turned away, wanting to throw up. He had just seen a woman violated and murdered right before his eyes. He was a Teen Titan, how could he have just stood by and let this happen? With that he looked over at Raven, who maintained her same stony faced expression of indifference.

"Rae, what gives? Are you not disgusted?" he growled at her. Raven's eyes softened with a pained look for a moment, but then grew wide and she pulled him into a vortex of black magic, shielding him. "What the... HeMMMPH" He was silenced by her hand over his mouth as he looked back towards the window.

As the man, Ian he supposed, was dragging the body off the table, he had looked out the window. And he had spotted they young girl. She had paled but made no move to run at first, not until by some method or madness Ian's face morphed into a grin that seemed to stretch and contort his face into a mask of sadistic glee. The girl turned to flee, but he was faster. He opened the window and caught her by her long hair, pulling her towards him.

"Anna, darling, you thought you'd spy on you dearest big brother now, did you? You like what you see, bitch?"He spat, dragging her violently through the window and into the kitchen.

"No, Ian, no! I won't tell anyone, please! Let me go! I won't breathe a word of it!"she wailed. His response was to push the bloody corpse off the table and throw his sister onto it, climbing on top of her and pinning her limbs down with his superior strength.

"No, you won't, dear Anna. You won't" he whispered, grabbing the serrated blade and running it alongside her throat, drawing some blood. She whimpered.

"Please..."

"You always had such a pretty little voice, Anna. So pretty... Such beautiful songs you would sing" he mused aloud, using the blade to rip open her blouse. Tears were streaming freely down her face, and she was visibly shaking.

"I want you to sing for me" he commanded.

"Please, brother, please..." she whispered once more.

"SING!" he howled, plunging the blade into her body right above the sternum. She screamed in pain as he sawed through it, the bones cracking and separating. He hummed along as she screamed, working his way down until he had cut through the center of her chest cavity. With that, he sat the blade down and began using his hands to pry apart her ribs, cracking them in half, pulling them out completely. She gasped and gurgled blood, her screams of pain becoming more agonizing and at the same time feeble.

"No, you won't sing any longer, my Anna. You cannot" he said smoothly, and with that proceeded to cut out her lungs.

x.x.x.x.x.x

As the spectacle of gore and horror unfolded before them, the heroic instinct in Beast Boy was screaming and clawing at him to get free, to go help the girl in distress. Raven from inside her black bubble wouldn't let him.

"Let me the FUCK out of here, Raven! Right now!" he yelled at her. She remained impassive, as he morphed into all sorts of creatures in attempt to bypass her magic. Nothing worked.

"What's your problem, Raven? Are you just gonna watch her die? Just gonna let this happen? I thought you were a Titan? Or does this somehow get you off?"

Raven's eyes split into four pairs of glowing red slits, and she smacked him, hard, across the face. He stumbled, eyes wide. Her eyes went back to normal almost immediately, and seemed to be brimming with tears. Without warning she flung herself at him, hugging him tightly as she held back her sobs.

"How could you?" she whispered. "How could you think that? After all we've been through... I thought you were my best friend..." she whimpered, and Beast Boy momentarily forgot about what was going on in the cottage in order to hold her, his eyes still wide as saucers.

"What..."

"Beast Boy." She pulled herself away from him, her hands on his shoulders. "Can't you see that she's the ghost? She was going to die the moment we set foot into this vault. It's why we're here. Changing it won't solve her riddle or set her free. Yes, her murder is what affected her the most, so obviously she would have a nightmare about how it happened. We have to stand back" she faltered, with clenched teeth, "and WATCH."

Beast Boy then realized that Raven's impassive expression was not one of indifference, but a method for her to block out any emotion that would pierce her empathic perceptive skills and pull her into Titan mode. She knew exactly what was going on the second they set foot into that vault.

"Rae, I'm sorry. I can't believe I said those things" he sighed, turning back to the scene of the horrid crime. Ian was finished, displaying the lungs of his sister as a trophy and placing them on top of the fireplace before he moved to the previous body in order to take it out and dispose of it. Anna's motionless and destroyed corpse lay untouched on the table.

"We have to get her her voice back" Beast Boy said suddenly, looking at the bloody organs sitting, dripping, on the mantlepiece. "She needs to sing her story to us."

Raven's eyes widened, as she had not expected Beast Boy to discover the answer to the vault so quickly. She nodded, unshrouding them from her black bubble so they could make their way to the window. Beast Boy morphed into a mouse and scurried in quietly, while Raven floated through.

They stopped to look at the poor girl's face, now understanding where they had seen it. The statue in the Mausoleum graveyard bore the same horrified scream her lifeless form now had, eternally stuck in middle of a song of death.

Raven shivered, turning towards the lungs that were now separated from the body in order to attempt to levitate them back into the corpse. Her hand remained alarmingly devoid of her black energy, however, something that caused her to let out a small cry of terror.

Beast Boy screeched outright, however, as Ian had returned and was staring at them quizzically. That look turned murderous quickly, however, as he caught Raven with her hand outstretched towards the set of lungs. He let out a roar and charged at them with the blade.

Beast Boy morphed into a gorilla, throwing him off with a punch that would have killed a normal human. Ian simply stood up and cackled, his shoulder dislocated and dragging in an off sort of way. "Raveeeeen! Put them back!" Beast Boy yelped as he continued to engage the sadistic murderer.

With a grimace, Raven reached for the lungs and picked them up with her bare hands, the bloody flesh still warm in her hands. She turned and quickly made to place them back into the body, as the battle raged on in the kitchen around her between Beast Boy and the tireless wrongdoer.

She laid the lungs back into the cavity, setting them into the correct anatomical position. Just as she was about to reattach the trachea back to the larynx, however, Ian threw the knife towards her. Not reacting as fast as she would have liked, she dodged it, but it sliced the side of her arm in the process. Her blood began to course down her arm, but she had to help Beast Boy and fix the girl's lungs.

She got up, and with a quick movement reached back in to the chest cavity and snapped the pieces back together.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

A window-shattering scream blew Raven, Beast Boy, and Ian into different corners of the room as Anna's lungs filled with air and her voice could once more be heard. The two Titans stood shakily, staring in awe as an angelic form rose from the lips of the corpse, Anna, clothed in a white robe and singing something that sounded like it belonged in the choirs of heaven.

"Did you hear that?"

"Yes, let's go! She sounds like she's in trouble!" Beast Boy's animal hearing picked up some voices from outside the cottage a little ways away, and then the sound of running footsteps. He rushed over to Raven, who conjured up a quick shield and phased them out of the cottage.

Three villagers made their way to the cottage, where they discovered the murdered girl and her brother.

x.x.x.x.x.x

Beast Boy and Raven were, in a flash of light, transported out of the dream. They were once again on the grassy ground of the graveyard. The two Titans were visibly shaken, Raven clutching her cut arm in surprise as she made note of the injury that remained so despite no longer being inside the dream; she passed her blue healing magic over it.

They were greeted by Bali-Lali, whose cogs and wires connected her to the Mausoleum still.

"One lost soul down, and many more to go... Make sure to return every night from now on, if you'd like to remain among the living..." she reminded Beast Boy, who glared at her as she retreated into the depths of the building once more.

"Rae..." he moaned, sinking to the ground and letting his true overwhelming feelings come forth in the form of angry and terrified tears. "Why is this happening?" he gasped out, and she placed her arms around him again. She would not have said it out loud had it not been for the simple fact that she meant to comfort him and he needed it.

"Because you're you."

He looked at her, startled. "Wha...? Rae, really? You choose to insult me at a time like this? I can't believe you'd..." he stopped talking as he saw her smile.

"You stopped crying. That's a start."

He gave her a small sheepish grin. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

"But I meant what I said. You're the only one out of us, all five of us, who could really face something like this and make the best of it. Just think about it. Robin'd have to be sent off to Arkham after a stunt like this" she replied smoothly.

The compliment was not lost on Beast Boy, but he worried that he himself might have to wander the halls of Arkham Asylum after his adventure in the vaults would come to an end... Whenever that was.

x.x.x.x.x.x

The two Titans broke in to St. Lyman's School for Boys and crashed on the first bed they could find, which seemed to be the disused room of a young girl. The bed was massive enough to fit the both of them, and they had no desire to sleep without the other one that night anyhow. It was not how either of them pictured spending their first night with a member of the opposite gender in the same bed, yet they didn't mind.

Beast Boy awoke with Raven draped across his chest, clutching him tightly. He smiled down at her, as in sleep she no longer had that perpetual brooding look that drew away from her natural beauty.

'Whoa, did I just think of Raven as beautiful?' he thought to himself. Indeed she was, however, her face serene and her lips parted slightly as she breathed. Soft sunlight from the window gleamed off of her chakra stone, and her violet hair lay spread across his shoulders. He had to admit that her growing it out a little made her look more womanly to him, which helped a lot.

He realized, then, that he had not had nightmares that night with her by his side. He half expected to dream something horrible, after what he had been through. Yet Raven always brought something out in him that reassured him that everything would be ok. She was home to him.

His communicator beeped, and he reached over to the bedside table to pick it up groggily. Upon flipping it open, Cyborg's face appeared.

"Whoa, B! You're still in bed? It's past noon!" the metal man exclaimed.

"Yeah, we had a late night..." the changeling replied, his voice still hoarse.

"Mhmm, you look a little greener than usual. Darker under the eyes" Cyborg pointed out. Beast Boy let out a huff.

"You won't believe what happened to us..." he began.

"Yeah, I think we all deserve an explanation, but first where's Raven?" Cyborg interrupted. Beast Boy raised his eyebrows. Explanation? Did Cyborg already know? Without thinking much, Beast Boy turned the communicator a little so Cyborg could see Raven's sleeping form at his side.

Big mistake.

"WHOOOOOAAAA! B! WHAT THE HELL?" Cyborg exclaimed, partly freaked out but mostly giddy with something new to tease his best bud about. His shouts began to rouse a sleeping Raven, although Beast Boy didn't notice as he was too busy trying to talk over Cyborg and get his blush to go away.

"Cy! It's not what it looks like!"

"Never saw THIS one coming!"

"Let me just-"

"Man, I send y'all off on a trip on your own and it barely takes half a day and you're in bed together!"

"Shut up! Will you please shut-"

"I mean, when you said you two had a late night, I didn't think it meant something like this!"

"CYBORG SHUT UP!"

It was this last outburst that caused Raven to awaken fully, and as she had only caught the last bit of the conversation she was wondering what on earth her teammates could be talking about. That's when her eyes focused on the green skinned chest her head was resting upon.

She sat up and scooted away from Beast Boy as quick as lightning, which only made Cyborg guffaw harder.

"... I don't even want to know what you were saying. But you'd BETTER not repeat it." Raven deadpanned, glaring at the changeling and then at the Tin Man. "EVER."

Both Titans nodded, shutting up rather effectively.

"Now," Raven began calmly, "what were we going to tell Cyborg this morning?"

"Afternoon" Cyborg couldn't help correcting, which of course earned him a glare.

"Uh... yeah, well... Pretty much we got contracted to to free some ghosts from a creepy-ass graveyard and solve their riddles in order to do so and if we don't I die."

Silence from Cyborg, which in this case was not something either of the Titans appreciated.

They then proceeded to explain everything to their now dead serious teammate, who looked more and more upset by the second. Once they had finished, leaving out some of the more grisly details of the dream of course, Cyborg looked horrified.

"Y'all have to do this every night?" he managed to get out. They nodded.

"I'll send this information to Robin, then. I'll have to call for backup and maybe I can come help you in just a few..."

"Cyborg, you can't leave Jump City" Raven replied.

"Like hell I can't! Y'all can't expect me to leave you two to face this shit alone!"

"Cyborg, who would watch after everything?" Beast Boy supplied. He really wanted the help from his cybernetic friend, but he realized that the City's needs were greater than his in this moment.

"You can't leave the city to the mercy of all those villains, and all the crime fighting to a handful of new recruits or some poorly trained Honorary Titans. I know that's what you're thinking" Raven admonished.

Cyborg looked distraught. "I can't leave you there without help either!" he said, exasperated.

"We managed fine. We can do this" Beast Boy said, surprising even himself with this vote of confidence. Raven reached over and placed a hand on his shoulder, which he then took after a brief moment and held in his own. This was becoming a familiar gesture amongst the two of them, something that they were getting used to.

Cyborg paused in his ranting as he witnessed the exchange through the transmission, and that was enough in a way to let him know that perhaps he should leave well enough alone, even for the sole purpose to let the two former frenemies bond. They had come a long way throughout the years, whose to say where they could end up?

He sighed in mock defeat. "Ok, guys. But the second you need my help... You call me. I noticed last night for a brief period of time your communicators went offline, for about thirty-forty minutes. I'm guessing that's when you were in the dream... I got worried and called you about it" he explained.

"Yeah, well, I guess it's gonna happen every night now for a while" Beast Boy said with a huff.

"Ok, y'all. I'd suggest you two go find some stuff out about the town while you're there, cus it looks like you're gonna be there for a long time. We still need to figure out what that creature was after, despite this little... Er, detour."

"I've got a feeling it's all connected... somehow..." Raven muttered.

* * *

MKAY. So I obviously moved the story into the M section now, as a full range of expletives were used in this chapter along with the graphic murder depiction. Get used to it, because I'm really twisted up here in the ol' cranium.

Yes, Ian's name was picked in reference to a serial sadistic killer named Ian

Brady from the 1960's. No, this is not him in the story.

Pardon me if my riddles suck royally, but I write them just haphazardly and not really thinking TOO hard about what they need to say, just that it needs to be in some sort of context with what our heroes will find in the vault.


	4. The Hunt

I do not own Teen Titans, nor do I own Bizenghast. They belong to their respective owners, and all I can claim credit for are the concepts presented in this story. For future reference, all non DC Comics-verse scenarios depicted in the story are of my own invention.

CHAPTER WARNING: Graphic and descriptive violence; language

* * *

The Sunken Mausoleum - Ch. 4

Robin was not pleased with how things were going, both in Gotham and in the creepy little town of Bizenghast. From what Cyborg had told him, one of his teammates were roped into some magical contract that even Raven couldn't break, and on penalty of death were being forced to see it through. He was glad Beast Boy was getting help from the sorceress, but this was something that he didn't want to be stressing about at the moment.

Starfire was being as supportive as she could of the Boy Wonder, but even she was having trouble dealing with the pain she saw in him each day. Being in Gotham depressed her, what with its grey coloring and deadlier atmosphere. It was hard for her to be her cheery self here, and she hoped that with whatever goodness was left in this world that she and Robin would make it back to Jump City safely... after dealing with the Joker and putting him behind bars, of course.

x.x.x.x.x.x

After their communications with Cyborg had ended, Beast Boy and Raven were set to doing something they thought would never be necessary for the pair of heroes: job hunting. They would need a way to pay for their visits in the Mausoleum, and they'd need to feed themselves of course. Bali-Lali had specified for them to return with a gold toll each night, something that Raven could not conjure up either as the place would undoubtedly recognize it as a spell and who knows what harm would befall them.

Raven was using the bathroom adjacent to the room they had slept in in order to change into civilian clothes. She and Beast Boy would be wearing their holo-rings while visiting the town, in order to prevent any more messes. She donned a pair of gray jeans, a homage to her natural skin color, a navy blue shirt with three-quarter sleeves, and black canvas shoes. She pulled a black hoodie on as well, not willing to leave the familiarity that her hood held too far behind.

She then slipped on her ring, which caused a cooling effect to come over her entire body, and she shut her eyes involuntarily. When she opened them, she stared back at a woman who bore a vague resemblance to the Raven everyone knew well, but was not Raven.

Her hair was now a dark brown, almost black. Since she had decided to grow it out a little as the years passed, it now was cut just above her shoulders. The holo-ring caused it to lose some of it's natural straightness and it now remained in soft waves framing her face. Her eyes remained their signature dark amethyst color, but her chakra stone was gone from her forehead. It now hung on a pendant around her neck. Her skin was pale white, no longer gray. In a way, her human form was different but not so much that she couldn't stand to look at herself. She found this change intriguing, and was then reminded that Beast Boy would also be looking quite different.

She opened the door to the restroom and walked back to the bedroom, pausing to observe a pair of Walkers ambling across the lawn outside through one of the windows. The things looked to be lost and desperately searching for something unobtainable, and Raven felt a stab of pity for them before she continued to make her way into the bedroom.

Beast Boy turned to face her, his eyes wide. Raven let out a little gasp. His eyes were still the green she knew from before, but his hair was now blonde; it stuck up every which way as she was used to it doing, however. Over the years Beast Boy himself had grown his hair out a little, and it hung a little shaggier on his head. The blonde was different, but Raven wasn't too upset by it either.

His skin was the biggest change, as it was not green but a soft and healthy pinkish color. He smiled at her as he saw her new form.

"Rae, you look awesome!" he said, moving towards her so he could get a good look at her.

"You're not so bad yourself" she replied in her monotone, although her eyes were smiling.

"I guess this is what I'd look like if I were human. Cy really outdid himself" he said. His fangs were no longer present either, but his canines were a little sharper than the normal average person's. He had put on a pair of skinny black jeans, a purple t-shirt, and a green jacket with some green converse. He also was too attached to his own costume to get too crazy with civilian clothing yet, as it turned out.

"So, you ready for a trip into town?" he asked, offering Raven his arm. She linked it through his, sighing but her face a mask of determination.

"Let's go job-hunting!" she said sarcastically, and with that she transported him outside using her dark energy.

x.x.x.x.x.x

They had decided to use their human names around town, and thus would have to practice using the names Rachel and Garfield until they got used to it. The two Titans walked into the town square side by side, looking around curiously to scope out the place. Not too many residents were out, at least in the town square. They passed the broken fountain, where an old man sat petting his old dog.

They arrived at what looked like a fast food place, where a few girls and boys sat eating fries and drinking shakes. All the kids there seemed to be wearing a school uniform, and somehow even that freaked Beast Boy out. His stomach growled, however, and he knew that he'd have to eat something.

Raven raised her eyebrows and grabbed his arm, dragging him into the place. They received weird looks from the kids, who started whispering to themselves. The hairs on the back of Beast Boy's neck stood on end.

"Rae, do you think they know we're disguised?" he whispered to her as she stared at the menu. She glared at him.

"We're wearing holo-rings, Beast- Gar, not wigs and fake mustaches" she hissed back. She then ordered a hamburger, a shake, and some fries for herself and got a veggie burger with fries and a soda for Beast Boy.

"That's the last of my cash, we need to find jobs today or we're screwed" she said as they took their food outside to a table and began to eat. Suddenly, one of the girls who was staring at them walked over to them at a brisk pace with one of her friends in tow (who looked like the last thing she wanted to do was follow).

"Dinah? Vincent? What're you doing here?" she said, in an almost frightened tone. The two Titans raised quizzical eyebrows.

"Who?" Beast Boy managed to reply.

"Vincent! Vincent Monroe! It's you, isn't it? And you... You're Dinah Wherever. I'd recognize you any day." The girl seemed convinced that the Titans were these people, and the friend behind her looked even more alarmed at this.

"How are you here? How are you... alive?" the friend suddenly burst out. This caused both Titans to give each other looks of confusion and a sensation of dread fell upon both of them.

"I'm not... We're not..." Beast Boy began, stammering.

"My name is Rachel, and this is Garfield. Whoever you thought we were, we're not. We just moved here." Of course, Raven managed to coolly save the situation from any slip ups, and the two girls scrutinized them hard after this.

"You sure do look like them. Huh. Well, sorry we bothered you!" the first girl said, dragging her friend away who seemed terrified yet skeptical of Raven's response. Beast Boy turned back to his food, realizing that he suddenly wasn't all that hungry. Raven popped a fry in her mouth, chewing in order to make things seem more normal.

"Curiouser and curiouser..." she muttered.

Once they had finished their meal, Beast Boy having to stuff his food down his unwilling throat, they left the weird school kids behind and made their way to the Bizenghast Town Hall.

"Maybe they'll have some jobs listed here" Raven had suggested, and Beast Boy certainly hoped they would. A middle-aged tired looking woman sat behind the front desk, shuffling through papers.

"Can I help you?" she asked in a voice that suggested that helping the two Titans was the last thing she wanted to do.

"We're looking for jobs, we've just moved here" Raven began, trying to seem more optimistic than she normally would. The woman snorted, still not looking up from her papers.

"Aren't we all looking for jobs these days? And why on Earth would you move HERE of all places to look for them? You must be pretty desperate to want to come to this hellhole of a to-" she looked up finally, and her words died in her throat.

"Dinah? Vincent? But I thought..."

"My name is Rachel Roth, and this is Garfield Logan" Raven cut her off in a louder voice, her temper beginning to flare. "Is there anywhere we could try to look for jobs?"

The secretary, eyes wide, kept them fixated on the two faces she thought would never be seen again. "You could try the library. I heard that Mrs. Tucker was looking for some help... And maybe the antiques dealer. Mr. Johnson always whines about not having enough manpower to clear out some of the abandoned places on the outskirts of town... Jesus, you two look like them..." she murmured almost to herself. Raven glared at her one last time before grabbing Beast Boy by the arm once more and pulling him out.

"Thanks!" he called out feebly to the woman, who kept her eyes on the pair until they had exited the building.

Raven was beginning to wonder what exactly was going on in this place, but she knew that they had more important issues to deal with first. Finding a job in order for them to keep their end of the contract was top of the list, as she had no desire to find out what Bali-Lali would do to Beast Boy if they didn't.

They walked over to the library first, walking on the broken sidewalks past many homes until they turned and came across the building. It was stationed upon a hill, with two sets of stairs leading up to it from the sidewalk. The building itself had a colonnade in front of two large ornate doors, and large airy looking windows dotted the structure's sides. 'Bizenghast Library' was inscribed onto the marble facing above the columns, giving the building a distinctive Roman look. The two Titans walked up the stairs and into the structure, finding it deserted.

They made their way to the front desk, and were not surprised to find no one sitting there. Beast Boy reached out and rang the little bell, which echoed eerily throughout the place, bouncing back and forth until it was suffocated.

Footsteps shuffled towards them from the section labeled "Non-fiction" and an elderly woman with a short bob of silver hair and half-moon spectacles emerged, carrying a handful of books. "May I help yo-" she faltered, dropping her books in shock upon seeing the two of them.

"Vincent!" she screeched, rushing towards them, then stopping to look at him once she got closer. "V...Vincent? Dinah? Is that you?" she asked.

"No. My name is Rachel, and this is Garfield" Raven said for the third time that day. The librarian took a deep breath, still unsure.

"In my old age I must have thought.. Forgive me..."she replied anyway, giving them a look of recognition despite all of that.

"Why do you people in this town keep calling us that?" Beast Boy burst out suddenly, not able to take any more. "Who do you think we are?"

"Vincent used to come here to do research a lot, he was one of my most regular patrons... He went missing a long while ago, and shortly after that his body was found along with that of his best friend, Dinah Wherever, out by St. Lyman's School for Boys. The bodies went missing after a mysterious occurrence in the town, no one knows what happened that day... So naturally I thought..."

"You're Mrs. Tucker, aren't you?" Raven interrupted, not wanting to hear any more of this. She didn't need Beast Boy freaking out any more than he should, as she had a gut feeling this had something to do with their contract at the Mausoleum. "We just moved here, we were told that you were looking for some help here at the library..."

"Yes, my assistant graduated last year and moved away from this town. In all honesty I only need one person to work for me, though... You can both follow me around for the day if you'd like, to see which of you would be more likely to want the job" the elderly woman offered. The two Titans knew that Raven would most likely want the job, due to her penchant for reading and loving all things book-related, but out of courtesy they decided to both stay.

"I'll pay you by the hour, and at the end of each of your shifts. I'm afraid that no one really comes here much, but many online archives and towns outside of our own are our regular customers... There's a lot of organizing and filing to be done in the archives as well. It's not easy work, and requires patience" she said. Raven nodded her head, Beast Boy simply looked bored. He'd hope to have more luck with the antiques dealer, at least there he'd be given the chance to look at and mess with weird stuff.

Their day at the library was dull and monotonous, at least in Beast Boy's opinion. Raven chose to use that time wisely as she was instructed on how things needed to be set up in the various files, what sort of research she would be doing for the online customers, and what information she could look for as a result of her own investigation of the town. Perhaps her time there would solve the mystery of what happened to this Dinah and Vincent, also.

At around dinnertime, the two Titans said their goodbyes to Mrs. Tucker, and Raven promised to return the next day in order to begin work. The librarian seemed pleased that it was Raven who she would be working with, perhaps because she had spent so much time with this Vincent Monroe and Beast Boy looked so much like him with his holo-ring, not that Mrs. Tucker knew that of course.

They made their way towards the outskirts of the town, upon which Raven enveloped them in her dark magic and transported them back to St. Lyman's, which had become their base of operations.

"Ugh, I need to get back in my suit! It's weird to wear normal clothing now..." Beast Boy moaned as he slipped off his holo-ring. Raven watched as his skin pigmentation morphed back to green and his hair darkened until it was its regular shade of emerald. His fangs grew back before her eyes, and he motioned for her to do the same. She pulled her own ring off, and the oddest tingling sensation came over her body as her skin grayed and her hair straightened back to violet. Her chakra stone reappeared on her forehead.

"Ok, let's suit up then and head back over to the Mausoleum... I'm hoping that tonight's vault won't be as gruesome" she said to her partner, who shivered in response. Both of them seemed to know that it might have been too much to ask.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

They arrived after the sun had set behind the trees much earlier, and this time walked straight up to the two stone doors and the cloaked Hooded Angel, who sat cross-legged and proffering the dish. Raven had found a small golden bracelet in the room they were staying in, and so she tossed that into the dish where it landed with a tinkling of metal on stone. The doors to the Mausoleum opened, then, and the two Titans descended into the depths.

They had realized upon browsing the headstones that the riddles were going to appear to them inside the Sunken Mausoleum from that point forward, rather than on the headstones themselves. Raven suspected that this was to assure that the Mausoleum received their gold toll; the heroes couldn't enter the vaults without solving the riddle, and they couldn't solve the riddle's if they couldn't read them.

"Dammit, now we have to match up the riddles with the headstones too? That's just more work though!" Beast Boy whined as they entered the impossibly large cathedral-like structure; now, the hallways had uncovered a list of plaques which contained the riddles for each headstone.

"It's their way of making sure they get their gold" Raven voiced her thoughts aloud, and Beast Boy groaned.

"Greedy bastards" he muttered. The Mausoleum groaned in response, and Beast Boy raised his hands in an apology of sorts.

"Hmm... Let's see... which riddle should we pick tonight?" Raven mused aloud, walking along the various plaques trying to choose one that didn't seem too ominous.

"They're all gonna be horrible, we're going into the nightmares of ghosts, remember?" Beast Boy pointed out.

"You're right, but wouldn't you prefer to deal with the nicer spirits first?" Raven challenged, running her hand along one. "This one seems ok" she said, before reading it aloud.

"I see from false eyes,

My heart no longer beats,

From dust I was made,

to it I shall return,

All I wanted was a friend,

and for one I still yearn."

"Sounds pretty horrible to me" Beast Boy countered. "Still talking about death!"

"They're ghosts, Beast Boy, what did you expect?" Raven said as they made their way back out and into the graveyard. They finally found the headstone they needed, one of a young boy whose eyes seemed to be sutured closed somehow; his arms were outstretched as if looking for someone to hug and hold in his arms. A small leather pouch was attached to his belt. Beast Boy morphed into a mouse and chewed through all of the leather that kept it tied to the stone. Raven used her powers to pour the dust in the bag into his outstretched hands. With a click, the trapdoor opened and the two Titans, after a shared look meant to give the other courage, descended into the darkness.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Once the fog cleared, Raven and Beast Boy found themselves in a similar setting to the first dream: in the woods. This time, they were in a clearing with no living creatures in sight, save for a beautiful red fox. Beast Boy, with his affinity for animals, morphed into a fox himself and was about to go up to it when suddenly an arrow flew and sliced into the fox's head directly through the eye.

Beast Boy immediately turned back into his human form, utterly shocked and disgusted. "Rae..." he whispered. She bit her lip and gave him an apologetic look.

"I'm sorry you had to see that, Gar" she said, using his real name. He reached out and gave her hand a squeeze, drawing from her strength. Each time he saw animals being killed, it was as if he himself lost something.

"Such a good shot, I wish I could hunt like that."

A boy, looking to be about fourteen or fifteen, had emerged from behind a tree near them. Raven immediately knew that this was the ghost, as he reminded her of the headstone they had just encountered. She squeezed Beast Boy's hand through his glove, and he nodded to show that he understood.

"I'm so jealous of him, he's always been the best hunter in the town... I wish he would teach me" the boy whispered, mesmerized by the newer figure who had materialized in the clearing: a man of about twenty-eight, or thirty. He pulled the arrow cleanly out of the fox's eye, and lifted the carcass into a satchel. Raven pulled Beast Boy close to her and phased into the ground, and not a moment to soon. The hunter looked up.

"Boy! What're you doing out here?" the hunter called out. The young boy, startled, walked over to him.

"I... I was admiring you hunt. I've always wanted to learn how..." he replied softly.

"You're quite close to where I was hunting. I might've hit you!" The hunter said. The boy hung his head. "Not afraid to approach the scene, though... An admirable quality. Come, let me teach you."

Inside Raven's magic shield, Beast Boy and the sorceress were able to perceive something, a sort of shift in the dream, as if time was passing faster than normal. They remained in the clearing, and suddenly the boy reappeared with the hunter. This time he was equipped in a similar fashion to his mentor, and in his arms was the corpse of a freshly killed rabbit.

"Let's head back to the cabin so we can begin our work" the hunter spoke, and the boy eagerly followed.

Raven and Beast Boy took that as their cue, and she reappeared and began to pursue the two throughout the trees. Beast Boy had turned into a hummingbird, as being around hunters made him wary and he did not want to get shot at.

The cabin, as it turns out, was a haven for art. The hunter did not hunt for food, but in order to create taxidermy of the animals he killed. Raven and Beast Boy stared through the window as he gutted and prepared the latest animal for the process, while the boy watched and helped in some occasions. He looked upon his mentor adoringly.

"Now, boy, hand me the larger blade" the hunter said. Beast Boy heard something in his intonation that alarmed him, something almost... predatory.

"Rae... What's he..." he began to whisper, but she cut him off.

"I think I understand the riddle now" Raven replied, eyes wide.

The boy gave his teacher the large hunting knife, and then turned to admire a beautifully taxidermied falcon. The hunter suddenly turned and struck the boy in the back of the head, pushing him into the ground. The boy cried out, struggling feebly. The hunter then proceeded to gut him and bleed him out on the cabin floor, pulling out his entrails and gouging out his eyes despite the agonized cries the boy was making.

Once they had finished, there was another shift in the atmosphere, and this time as the Titans looked into the cabin they saw the almost completed taxidermy of the boy. His eyes were sown shut, his mouth covered in similar sutures. The hunter was stuffing the last bit of the body with sawdust, and sowing the dried skin closed as he did so.

"He's the prize in his collection" Raven choked out. "A hunter hunting one of his own."

Beast Boy turned, the bile rising in his throat. Animals, humans... All part of him, all killed by this monster. Without thinking, blood rushing through his ears and his eyes seeing nothing but red, he morphed into a lion and burst into the cabin, ignoring Raven's cries of "NO!"

The hunter turned, and Beast Boy faltered for a moment. His eyes were slitted like a cat's, and his teeth were serrated fangs. The green lion blinked, shaking it's mane in order to dispel the vision.

"Beast Boy, it's a trap! It's just the dream, it's not real..." Raven screamed at him, floating into the room and in front of him. She seemed to know something about this that he didn't, and just before she was able to turn and use her powers on the hunter, he had clocked her on the head with a chair. She crumpled to the ground as Beast Boy remained fixated on the scene for a moment, then roared in an attempt to charge.

The hunter had already picked up his bow, and shot Beast Boy's lion form in the shoulder which impaled him to the wall of the cabin. He let out a roar of pain that transformed back into a human cry ad he turned back. The hunter grinned devilishly with those sharp teeth, and left Beast Boy whimpering on the ground as he picked up Raven's unconscious form.

He then proceeded to lay her on the table, in Beast Boy's plain sight.

"You will make the newest prizes in my collection... But I will save you for last, green one" he rasped in a gravelly voice. He strapped Raven to the table with leather bindings, took his needle and thread, and grabbed one of her eyelids. He then drove the needle through her gray skin, repeatedly, until her right eye was sown shut. Beast Boy howled in an animalistic manner, gasping and trying to break free from the arrow's anchoring hold in order to get to Raven.

"STOP IT! LEAVE HER!" he screamed, the arrow's biting pain in his muscle holding him back. The hunter had moved to sow the other eye shut, and paid the changeling no mind. Raven was beginning to stir, the wet blood on her face rousing her. Just before she could let out a scream, perhaps chant her mantra, the hunter drove the needle and thread through her lips and expertly silenced her.

"And now, let's see what's inside the witch"the hunter murmured, taking his knife and making to slice Raven's leotard off in order to better access her skin.

With a roar that shook the cabin's very foundations, Beast Boy morphed into a lion once more, grabbing the arrow in his teeth and breaking it off despite the pain and fresh blood flow that followed. He leaped onto the hunter and proceeded to push him back into his carefully taxidermied creations, destroying some of them. The almost finished taxidermy of the boy fell forward, suddenly bursting and all the sawdust filling swirling in the air as Beast Boy wrestled with the hunter. The dust suddenly consolidated into a humanesque shape, picking up the bow and arrow.

Beast Boy lept out of the way as the hunter's apprentice let the arrow fly, straight into the eye of his insane master. As he crumpled, the sawdust fell away from the boy's form and he turned into an angelic form of himself, who then vanished with a serene smile on his face.

Beast Boy, now gushing copious amounts of blood from his shoulder, turned to Raven's struggling form on the table. He slashed through her leather bindings with his lion's claws before resuming his human form. Raven raised her hands shakily to her face, tugging at the tender sowing. Beast Boy grabbed the hunter's knife and, despite his shoulder's screaming protests, raised it to her face.

"Rae, hold still. I'll fix this" he said gently. She stilled instantly as he told her to, and he placed one gloved hand on her cheek to steady her while he nicked the sutures one by one with the knife to free her lips. He did the same with her eyelids, and she opened them. She saw his tired face through a curtain of blood. Hissing in pain, she pulled the threads from her skin before she began to run her healing magic over her eyes and then her mouth.

"Rae, I'm tired" Beast Boy moaned.

"Shut up, I'm concentrating" she retorted.

"I wanna leave. Can we go home and sleep?" he sighed, before sitting down on the floor of the cabin.

"We will once I'm... Beast Boy? Why are you... Shit, Gar!" she finally noticed his wound, which he had managed to hide from her until now.

"You're hurt! Why didn't you say something?!" she yelled at him before floating down in front of him, now attempting to heal him.

"I wanted to make sure you fixed yourself first..." he said, his eyes drooping.

"Beast Boy, you ass! You're much worse off than me!" she chastised him, frantic. "I've stopped the bleeding, but you'd better stay awake!"

"But I'm so sleepy... Can't we just go to bed and cuddle again?" he moaned in a half drowsy state. Raven tried to hide her blush but figured he wouldn't notice anyway.

"We can if you manage to stay awake until I've healed you." His eyes drooped some more.

"You hear me?"His eyes shut completely and he sighed.

"Beast Boy... Beast Boy.."her voice was getting softer, why was she talking so quietly? He wasn't able to hear her for much longer.

"Gar... GAR!"

* * *

Well... There's number four. I wrote a lot more for this one, oops. Some more Bizenghast references in this one, but as I said before you don't need to know about it to get this story as I usually explain anything important... or will be doing so in the future chapters. Let me know what you guys thought of this one, and the story in general! I see lots of readers, but no one's giving me any feedback... I'd really appreciate some!


	5. The Sickness

I do not own Teen Titans, nor do I own Bizenghast. They belong to their respective owners, and all I can claim credit for are the concepts presented in this story. For future reference, all non DC Comics-verse scenarios depicted in the story are of my own invention.

CHAPTER WARNING: Graphic and descriptive violence; language

Shoutouts to my only reviewers so far: Juliegirl22, Kayla, and Nalael

* * *

The Sunken Mausoleum - Ch. 5

Beast Boy awoke in the bedroom in St. Lyman's School for Boys, not quite sure of how he got there. Luckily for him, he didn't have to wonder for too long; Raven was by his side instantly.

"Beast Boy! You've been out for hours... I was getting really worried" Raven began, her voice losing some of its concern as she became aware of how emotional she sounded. "I've been in a healing trance while you were out, it's been affecting you too. I'm glad to see you're okay..."

She had managed to transport them both back into the disused school unharmed, for once they were kicked out of the ghost dream they remained injured. Raven had since healed her own wounds completely, and Beast Boy's had just finished.

"What... Ugh, Rae, my shoulder feels really sore" he moaned. She sighed.

"It'll feel like that unless you use it and get the muscle working again. Come on, you've slept enough for one night... Let's head back into town soon, we need to get to work." She kept her hood pulled up over her eyes so that he wouldn't see how bloodshot they were, not to mention the purplish shadows that lined underneath them.

Beast Boy, however, was much more aware then she expected. Before she could uncross her legs and float off, he grabbed her wrist and turned her to face him.

"Rae, look at me" he said quietly. She hung her head, but he simply reached behind her neck and gently yanked the hood off of her face. He glared at her. "You haven't slept a bit, have you?"

"It was taking all of my concentration to heal us both" she muttered back, still not looking at him. Suddenly he was reaching for the clasp of her cloak and sliding it off of her shoulders, tossing it towards the foot of the bed.

"Gar! What're you..." she had turned red, starkly contrasting her normal pallor. He raised an eyebrow but said nothing, although he really wanted to. He knew she'd rip his head off if he made some sort of uncouth remark, and he needed her to cooperate.

"You're getting some rest before you spend the day braining away at the library... Plus we've got another vault tonight. You need to sleep!" he chastised her, smoothly unbuckling her belt and then knocking her softly in the small of her back so that she fell backwards

"Eep!" she let out a very un-Ravenlike yelp as she fell, and his arm was there to catch her. He then leaned back with her, pulling the covers over both of them and restraining her in his arms so that she wouldn't try to wriggle free and get out. She was too shocked to even attempt to phase through the bed and away from him, not to mention her emotions were going haywire and she highly doubted her powers would work.

"Sleep. Then we'll talk about work" Beast Boy said, his eyes already drooping closed. He unconsciously pulled her closer to him under the covers, and Raven was sure he could hear her heart beating as if it were about to explode, not to mention feel the blush heating right off of her face.

After a few minutes of heavy breathing, Beast Boy was out cold. With him asleep, it was easier for Raven to calm down a bit and use her expert meditating skills to return her emotions in check. She could feel some of her emoticlones rampaging around Nevermore, yet she couldn't fight the heaviness of her own eyelids, nor the comfort and safety she felt wrapped up in Beast Boy's arms...

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

The rest of that day was spent in a sort of comfortable silence, as the two Titans seemed to be content with their bonding moment from earlier and yet some untested emotions were running between the two of them like an electric current. They had donned their holo-rings and civilian clothing, and Beast Boy had deposited Raven at the library from his motorcycle with the promise to return around dinnertime.

He then drove off in search of the antiques dealer, hoping to settle himself into a job that would help fund their stay in Bizenghast, and of course their trips to the Mausoleum. He arrived at what looked to be one of the creepiest buildings of the town, the only thing that gave him the hint as to what it was being the sign hanging out from the front with the words "Antiques" written in a barely legible gothic script. Parking and locking his bike, he approached the store which loomed ahead as if waiting to open it's doors and swallow him up. The crumbling facade and the dirty windows full of grit gave him the shivers.

Pushing the door open, a horribly off-key tinkling of a bell permeated the shop and he cringed. Scattered every which way throughout the shop were pieces of furniture that looked like they could date back to the middle ages, knick knacks, lamps, ornate paintings, and a few tables with scattered odds and ends that Beast Boy felt like Raven would enjoy hanging about her room back at the Tower.

"Who's there? A customer?" an old voice belonging to an equally old man brought Beast Boy back from his observations. He met the eyes of the shop owner, and had to restrain himself from visibly gulping: one of the man's eyes was cloudy and white. He was blind in one eye.

"Don't let this fool you, I've got the finest eye for genuine artifacts of great value in this whole dump of a town. Call me Johnson."

Beast Boy reached out and shook the man's hand. "I'm Garfield... Call me Garfield! Heh heh... Uhh.. I was wondering if you needed a little help around here, actually. I just moved here, and I was looking for some work..."

"Job-hunting, eh? Well, fine by me. I suppose that cranky old hag at the Town Hall sent you over here... Hmm, not that you wouldn't be of use, you look like you can lift some of the heavy stuff, at least partly" the man said, appraising him.

"Uh, thanks I guess?" Beast Boy replied, scratching his head at what he thought was a compliment.

"Yes, you'll do alright. Seem humble enough to handle some of these great antiquities... Bizenghast holds some of the most desired and valuable pieces in the entirety of the country. You should see our online auctions... Anyhow! You will be paid by the hour, and I expect you here from eight A.M. sharp until seven P.M., with time for meal breaks and such of course. You will have the weekends off. Now, let's begin shall we?"

Beast Boy's mind reeled at how quickly and down-to-business the man was, rattling off what seemed to be another contract where he had to man up and work. With a sigh, he followed his new boss into the shop to begin moving around and tagging some of the newer acquisitions, realizing that it was going to be a long day indeed.

x.x.x.x.x.x

That night at the Mausoleum, Raven and Beast Boy deposited a gold coin that Beast Boy had swiped from inside a drawer of one of the pieces of furniture at his new job.

"The old dude never even knew it was there!" he had told Raven, who simply rolled her eyes. The Hooded Angel opened the doors for them, and the two Titans descended into the depths of the Mausoleum once more.

"Let's see... What should we face tonight?" Beast Boy mumbled as he looked through some of the riddles on the wall. The one from the previous night had vanished, and Beast Boy hoped that none popped up in its place for the duration of his contract... He was pretty sure that he was only signed on to deal with the spirits present at the time of his contract's initiation, but you never knew these days with all this magic stuff.

"How about this one? I can't tell if it's positive or I'm reading it that way to make myself feel better" Raven commented; she had stopped in front of one that seemed innocuous enough, but she figured that they all had a fair chance of SEEMING fine... Their past two nights in the vaults were nothing to laugh at, however.

"Inside my mind I'm burning,

I want to set them free,

Put a stop to all this yearning,

Fill the void with the remnants of me."

Beast Boy made a face as Raven finished reading it. "That made absolutely no sense."

"Cryptic, but seems like this spirit has some sort of good intentions... In a twisted way. Let's go look for the headstone" she told him, floating back over towards the exit.

"Ugh, these brainteasers are really starting to mess with me" Beast Boy moaned, following her.

They combed the graveyard until they came across one that seemed to fit the riddle: a statue of a teenaged boy of about their age, crumpled on the ground with his hands in his hair, kneeling in front of what seemed to be a bottomless pit. Beast Boy peered into it, and then with all the taste of a bona fide redneck, spit into the hole.

"That was totally unnecessary" Raven deadpanned, her nose scrunched up in disgust at her teammate. Beast Boy simply shrugged.

"It's the only way to tell how deep this thing goes. Wait for it..." he pressed his ear as close to the hole as he dared, awaiting the splotch his saliva would make as it hit the bottom. However, none came.

"Brilliant plan, Sherlock" Raven mocked with a small smile on her face. Beast Boy turned to glare at her.

"Then you figure it out! Obviously this is the void the riddle was talking about" he huffed. She stared more closely at the statue.

"You're right. We need to break it." With that, she raised her arms, her dark energy crackling around her hands. "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!"

With a slash, a clawed hand formed from her powers and wrapped itself around the statue, crushing it to bits. She then pushed the pieces into the hole, and to the Titans' great surprise, they heard the crumble of stone as it hit the nonexistent bottom of the void.

"Piece of cake" she said with a smug look towards Beast Boy, who in response ignored her and began to descend the ladder down into the vault.

"Yeah, yeah, let's just not get banged up like the last one. Promise me" he said, turning to grab her by the shoulders as she had floated down to his level. She was taken aback by his seriousness for a moment, before she reached up and took his hands in hers and gave them a squeeze.

"We'll be fine. Let's just get this over with."With that, she used her magic to push the door into the dream open and she pulled him inside.

They swam through the familiar fog, walking and pushing their way into what seemed to be a town forming around them. It was more modern than the last dream, and bore an odd resemblance to Bizenghast. The fog cleared, and the two Titans wandered around, looking for any signs of life. It was dusk, the sun making its way to nestle itself behind the tree-line.

"Hey! What're you doing out so late?" a voice suddenly barked at them. The two heroes jumped and whirled around.

"Don't tell me there's a curfew and we're getting punished!" Beast Boy yelped quietly.

"It's almost dinnertime!" A boy with shaggy black hair and dark eyes emerged from the shadows of an overhanging building. "Come join us for a meal, you look hungry! And I'm sure you'd love to meet my family."He beckoned them to follow, and Raven grabbed Beast Boy by the arm and yanked him after the teen.

"Is he the ghost?" the changeling murmured.

"Probably. We're about to meet a whole family, though, so it may be one of them. I can't seem to figure this dream out... Too many emotions running rampant in the dreamer's mind. I can't focus it" she whispered back. The boy turned around and smiled at them, stopping in front of a house that looked inviting, surprisingly, what with its lit windows and the smell of roast and potatoes drifting through.

"Come on in!" he said, pushing the door open to welcome the Titans to his home. They walked in cautiously, and the boy led them through a hallway and into a dining room, which was set up for a family of five, plus two more.

"Okay, now that's spooky. It's like they knew we were coming!" Beast Boy hissed frantically. Raven rolled her eyes and pushed him into a chair.

"Just shut up and watch" she mumbled, as a young girl of about ten came and sat next to Beast Boy while another boy who was probably thirteen sat next to her. A tired looking man made his way to the head of the table, and the mother of the house walked in at that moment with a platter full of what smelled to be the most delicious pot roast of all time. Raven's mouth began to water as the lady sat it in front of her, and Beast Boy gave her a look.

"I'm not eating any of that, I'm a vegetarian" he muttered, and the woman gave him a strange look but said nothing. The teen boy from before finally made his way into the room, sitting himself down at the other head of the table.

"Let us eat, I'm starved!"the father said. He dug his fork into the pot roast, pulling a piece of it onto his plate. Just as he began to wrap his lips around the succulent meat, he was interrupted by a harsh cough. The teen boy's face had lost its friendly quality, and the death glare he shot at his father was something even Raven had to admire.

"Without saying grace? Father, you taught us better than that" he said with a coolness that alarmed the Titans and seemed to make everyone at the table uncomfortable. The teen reached out and grabbed his mother and little sister's hands, and Raven and Beast Boy followed suit, grabbing hands with the family members in a thoroughly freaked out manner.

"Let us give thanks for the meal that the Lord is allowing us to partake in on this night, and let us give thanks for the family and friends that will be enjoying such earthly pleasures in communion with each other this evening. Amen."

Raven raised her eyebrow at the eloquence of the boy's speech, but all thoughts of anything else vanished once the mother placed a slice of the pot roast on her plate. Beast Boy frowned as he saw her cut a fairly large slice of it, and he reached for the bowl of potatoes and slopped some down on his plate. The other family members were devouring it equally as vigorously, all save for the teen boy, who seemed to be observing his family with an odd expression on his face.

"Mother, this is probably the best pot roast you've made to date!" the young boy said in between mouthfuls of food. The little sister nodded her head enthusiastically, swallowing yet another mouthful of chewed meat.

"Thank you, dear. Of course it must be that I had help from your brother, he's become quite efficient in the kitchen lately" the mother said, taking another bite of her own portion. The teen smiled at them all with a look that turned somewhat sinister, especially when he gazed at the father. The older man wasn't even speaking, simply shoving the food into his mouth at a rapid pace that made him look like a pig.

"I'm glad you all enjoy it, for it soon will be the last thing you'll ever taste."

Beast Boy's eyes widened at this, and he dropped his forkful of potatoes. Immediately he looked over at Raven, who was still chewing on the meat. "Rae! Spit it out!" he yelped. She suddenly began convulsing, her eyes glowing white as her lips seemed to seal shut. The changeling looked towards the other family members in horror: the little girl and boy were suddenly clawing at their tongues until they began to bleed, their blood mixing in with their own vomit as they began to retch. The mother was clutching her throat, her eyes bulging as she coughed, bulging so much until the blood vessels in her eyes began to burst. Some of the blood splattered onto Beast Boy's face, and he let out a shriek of disgust.

"Father, this was the only way for you to understand. You've been hurting your family, neglecting the values you taught me as a child, descending into a darkness I could not allow to continue... See how you've made me hurt them?" the teen boy had stood up now, glaring at his father's shaking form from the other end of the table. "Father, now we all must die because of your behavior. I've crushed a fatal dosage of your medication into the meat... Along with a fatal dose of my own. Once you are all dead, I will take my own life so that your filth cannot continue to putrefy His good Earth!"

"Dude, you're insane!" Beast Boy shouted, reaching out to grab Raven, who was shaking in his arms. Her lips suddenly gave way, and she began to vomit up blood. "What have you done to her?" he snarled. She coughed up some more blood, and suddenly her eyes glowed blue and she stilled, floating in the lotus position.

"Her body is fighting my medications, yet she too will be purified soon. You, however, are already pure in soul... You will be the one to spread my good message to the rest of the world. Tell them of how I cleansed these heathen ways and disposed of a demon, too. Tell them!" the teenager gave Beast Boy a psychotic smile, one that Beast Boy did not wish to see.

"Dude, they're you're family! How could you do this to them, your siblings were innocent! They didn't know any better!"Beast Boy challenged, feeling in his gut that he needed to be buying time. The teenager glared at him.

"My father's filthy habits were being passed on to them too, and there was no other way to stop it" he said, although Beast Boy caught him staring down at his siblings who were raising their hands towards him, coughing and spluttering weakly as they crumpled on the table.

"And your mother? She clearly loved you, you could see it in her eyes!" Beast Boy yelled back, leaving Raven's side to attempt to engage the raging boy. The teen had reached into his pocket to pull out a handful of rather large pills, seemingly about to ingest them."You're sick, but you don't need those pills. You need your family!"Beast Boy yelled desperately, as the teen's mother and father both finally gave out their last strangled cries of life, collapsing on the table as well.

"N...no! They were polluted, THEY were the sick ones... My sickness... It stemmed from HIM! It's not..." the boy was hanging desperately to his story, hoping that somehow his mental state would not remain torn as it was.

"Face it, you've ruined everything YOURSELF! It's YOU who's sick! Stop it, and they might forgive you in another life!" bBast Boy said, and with that he smacked the pills out of the boy's hand.

"MOTHER!" the teenager screamed, rushing to his dead mother's side, tears streaming down his face as he looked through blurry eyes at the unnatural rate of decay his family members were going through. "What have I done... Forgive me, mother... my sister and brother, they're... oh, father..."

Suddenly he was enveloped in a white light, and he turned into an angelic form of himself, and with a flash of light he was gone. Beast Boy watched as the dream melted from around him, and he rushed over to Raven's side. She seemed to be in another healing trance, her eyes glowing blue and the same blue magic radiating from around her entire form. He wrapped her in his arms as the rest of the dream faded away, and they were back in front of the door which led them back into the graveyard. Beast Boy pulled Raven through it, upon which she let out a groan and collapsed into his arms.

"Rae, wake up! Please be okay... he said the dose was fatal..." Beast Boy whimpered, not knowing if he would be able to get her to a hospital in time if he needed to.

"Fatal to normal humans. I'm half demon, remember?"

"RAVEN!" Beast Boy yelped, crushing her into a hug. She groaned.

"Beast Boy, my stomach is not at it's best right now, I might hurl on you."

"OOPS! Sorry... Heheh..." he said, and let her go. She stumbled forward a bit, and he grabbed her arm and wrapped it around his shoulders.

"Ooohhh... You know, that whole vegetarian thing, it doesn't sound too bad right about now" Raven muttered, clutching her stomach with a wince. Beast Boy laughed, suddenly throwing her gently so that she could climb onto his back so that they could ascend the ladder. "HeeEEeeY! What're..."

"Shush, this isn't as easy as it looks!" Beast Boy grunted, reaching the top finally and with an over exaggerated moan he lifted the both of them out of the vault's entrance.

"Thanks" she muttered, pulling her legs towards her chest and wrapping her arms around them as her stomach continued to send out waves of pain. "I'm pretty sure those meds ripped apart my insides" she groaned. "I need some tea... AAAAHHH! Beast Boy, put me down!"

The green changeling, after taking a moment to breathe, had scooped up the sorceress in his arms and began walking. "Nah, this is way easier than pulling you up a ladder... You're not yanking on my neck like this!" he said with a grin. Raven simply glared at him, not wanting to admit even for a second that she was grateful for his help.

"Uhh... Thanks, I guess" she spat out anyway, in a soft voice that made Beast Boy's knees go a little weak for whatever reason.

"No problem, Rae... Beast Man at your service!" he retorted, which earned him a glare. "Oh come on, I saved the day in there! And just admit it, you love being carried all damsel-in-distress like."

Her glare intensified, but then again, so did her blush.

* * *

Here's chapter five! I threw some fluff in there for all you BBRae lovers like me... :) Soon we'll be touching upon the mysterious happenings of the town, we'll learn a little more about Dinah and Vincent, and I know we're all missing Cyborg... So I'll try to work him in to the next chapter somewhere. Robin and Starfire might check in soon too! And not to worry, I haven't forgotten about the Titan's original mission... A few things need to be addressed first, though, so just be patient :)

Leave me a review, though, I'm simply DYING for some feedback...


	6. The Angel in Disguise

I do not own Teen Titans, nor do I own Bizenghast. They belong to their respective owners, and all I can claim credit for are the concepts presented in this story. For future reference, all non DC Comics-verse scenarios depicted in the story are of my own invention.

CHAPTER WARNING: Graphic and descriptive violence

* * *

The Sunken Mausoleum - Ch. 6

The routine persisted for Raven and Beast Boy ever since that day, and they continued their nightly visits to the Mausoleum, marked with intervals during the day which they spent at their respective jobs.

"Sorta seems like we're a married couple with a really twisted night time hobby, huh? Beast Boy had joked one day at lunch, and Raven simply rolled her eyes and took another bite out of her salad. She hadn't progressed to tofu just yet, but ever since their fateful night in the vault with the mentally ill teenage boy, Raven hadn't touched meat. When Cyborg discovered this, he nearly had a field day.

"WHAT?! Raven's a vegetarian now too?! Ya'll are getting pretty serious then!" he joked. "Although I must admit I've lost some respect for you, Rae, I can't believe you'd give up on delicious meaty goodness for... rabbit food!"

"Hey, I take offense to that!" Beast Boy retorted, morphing into a jackrabbit and stomping his foot angrily. Raven glared at Cyborg.

"Listen, if you had gone through a traumatic experience like that, giving up meat wouldn't sound so crazy" she growled.

"Well I guess nearly dying would do the trick... Anyways, have you heard much from Rob and Star?"

"Nothing really, Starfire called the other day blubbering and wanting to make sure we would return home safely and not die at the hands of evil spirits... I think Gotham is really getting to her" Beast Boy had replied, morphing back into a human to sit next to Raven who was holding the communicator.

"Yeah, they ran into Harley Quinn and some of the Joker's henchmen, and let's just say that although they kicked their butts, Robin nearly got his head blown off by one of their little bombs and Star nearly got a faceful of Joker gas from the man himself when he showed up on the scene to retrieve that little skank... It wasn't pretty."

Raven and Beast Boy would have given anything to head over to Gotham, only a few hours away from their current location, in order to help their friends... Yet they were still stuck in Bizenghast, for who knows how much longer.

They had received a decent pay from both of their workplaces combined, but were still only just able to get by and feed themselves. They used no electricity in their current hideout, and if the nights were cold they simply piled on the blankets and used it as an excuse to huddle closer to the other. They slept in the same bed every night, fearing what nightmares they themselves would fall prey to, rather than those of the ghosts they helped send to the other side.

"You know, I'm starting to think that I have a better handle on why the villains like the Hive 5 and Dr. Light steal so much... If they're living like we are it might just seem easier!" Beast Boy commented that night as they finished suiting up in order to head over to the Mausoleum.

"We're financed by the government and everything, and even now we have sort of jobs... I mean, those guys don't try, I get it. But I can see why they must think that stealing is the only way to get by."

Raven looked at him as she pulled on her blue slouchy boots. "When did you get so thoughtful, Gar?" she said, a genuine smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "Yeah, you may be right. But then there are those like Slade, the Brotherhood of Evil, or the Joker who want to wreak havoc and nothing more"she finished softly, shaking her head a bit.

Beast Boy knew that she was also thinking about her own father, Trigon the Terrible, the one she had defeated in order for life on Earth to continue. "Rae, you're nothing like him. Sorry I brought it up" he said, walking over to her and taking her hands in his still ungloved ones. The feel of his skin against hers was nice, and she looked at him with grateful eyes.

"Yeah, I know that now. But thanks anyway." She then gave him a hug, something very uncharacteristic of her but an action that was becoming more common between the two of them. Every time she hugged him, Beast Boy felt a jolt of hot electricity flow throughout his nervous system, and he was pretty sure she was aware of it. He'd play it off, though, and that's exactly what he did as he hugged her back.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

It was their tenth night entering the vaults in the Mausoleum; they had faced all sorts of tragic horror stories since that night with the crazy son who murdered his family. They had come across a ghost that did not realize that he had been run over by a train, and thus they had to find his body and lead him back to it. Another had died due to a prank gone wrong, and she had hung herself in her older sister's bedroom.

Those were two of the more innocuous of ghosts, for one in particular stood out to Beast Boy as they walked up to the Hooded Angel. The ghost of a woman plaguing a town due to the discovery of the death of her beloved dog, who she thought was her son... She had morphed into a monster and was terrorizing the villagers in the dream with her ghoulish moans that would lure them out of their homes in search of the problem, upon which she would snap their necks. Beast Boy finally had to morph into a dog and pretend to be her pet until Raven found the body of her real one, at which time she grew happy and was sent on her way.

"Raven, I hope that we don't have to keep doing this for much longer... Some of these ghosts are getting more violent and I don't know how we can keep this up."

"We just need to take every vault as a sort of training exercise, for our minds and our bodies. We're honing our skills this way" she replied, fishing around in her pocket for the golden brooch she had found in the school on one of the beauty tables in one of the disused rooms.

"You sound like Robin."

"Shut up."

She threw the brooch onto the Angel's plate, and the doors opened. They descended into the depths of the Mausoleum once more, something that was losing its ominous tones due to practice.

"Which ghost to free tonight? So many choices... And this one will be lucky number ten!" Beast Boy said, realizing that nine of the riddles had vanished from the wall (if you counted the first one too).

"Let's do this one" Raven said, pointing to one she had just finished reading. Beast Boy made his way over to her and plopped his head on her shoulder, reading aloud:

"All my life misunderstood,

Finally there was a way I could

Show the world my body of work,

Ideas in my mind that no longer lurk."

He shrugged, detaching himself from the blushing sorceress; she had not expected such closeness from him so suddenly, and she was confused as to why something as innocent as this got her so worked up. Beast Boy had touched her plenty of times, and her usual response was to simply smack him (although she had stopped doing that a while ago, for the most part). Hell, they had even hugged earlier!

'Probably because I wasn't expecting it... Emotions, calm yourselves!' she snapped at her emoticlones, who were once again bouncing around her mind like jumping beans.

"Sounds good, Rae, let's do it" he said, linking his arm with hers and pulling her out of her daze and towards the doors. They once again wandered through the graveyard, searching for the proper headstone.

"Hey, d'you think this might be it?" he suddenly called out to her, pointing towards the statue of a man... Without a head, or arms.

"His 'body' of work would fit this one, I'd guess" Raven mused, staring at the statue. In front of him was a table with what looked like artistry tools carved into the stone. Beast Boy, as usual, was touching all of them.

"Must you touch everything? Something might happen if this isn't the right headstone, and even if it is, you could incorrectly answer the riddle and we could-"

"AAAAAAHHHHH!" the two Titans screeched as suddenly a popping noise permeated the otherwise deadly quiet night air. Beast Boy had touched what looked like a carving scalpel, to insert designs into ceramic pots and vases. When he did, the thing sunk into the table and suddenly the table's front popped off, revealing the statue's missing arms and head. Beast Boy turned and gave Raven a smug grin.

"You were saying?" he gloated, reaching for the arms and tossing Raven the head. She scowled at him, floating up to lock the statue's missing head onto it's neck while Beast Boy secured the arms.

The statue now stood in a triumphant pose, the facial expression displaying one of confidence while the arms were bent in something known to the Titans all too well as the 'Superman Pose'... Kal-El would have disliked them comparing him to the statue of a probably psychotic ghost, but the resemblances in stance were too striking for them not to think it. The trap door suddenly appeared in front of the stone table, the ladder descending into the vault.

"Here's to you, Super dude" Beast Boy said, saluting the statue before hopping down into the pit.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

The dream took them back to a time long past, as the town they had arrived in seemed to be something out of the colonial age. People milled about doing their daily chores and duties, and Raven figured that from the start this dream was going to be a tough one; for starters, they still had to find the ghost.

"Who d'you think is 'it' this time around?" Beast Boy mumbled to her as they walked through the streets. Their attire was masked in this dream by some sort of cloaking spell that the Mausoleum placed upon them, although if someone stared at them too long their original costumes could probably be discernible underneath it all.

"Well, the riddle and the headstone had something to do with a person's life work... So I'm guessing they might be an artist of some type. Maybe a writer, or a painter..."

As they walked, they came across a little shop that made them stop in their tracks. A man sat at a potter's wheel, placing the finishing details on a ceramic vase that looked to be something out of a much more modern age. It was lopsided, but in an artistic way. He was carving some designs into the clay with a finesse and scrupulousness that Robin would have envied.

"...or a sculptor?" Beast Boy finished for her.

"Hey, Whitfield!"The painter looked up, spotting what looked to be customers to the Titans. A man and his wife were inspecting one of the bowls, a square cut number with geometric carvings into the sides. "What's this supposed to be? A lopsided tree stump gone all wonky?"

"Ok, not customers..." Raven mused aloud. The sculptor, Whitfield, looked up with a glare at the man criticizing his work.

"It is a bowl, or can your puny brain not comprehend even that?"he replied nastily. "Honestly, George, do you have nothing more to do every day except insult me? You have a family to take care of" the artist shot at him. The man growled and threw the clay blow onto the ground, where it split into a few shattered pieces.

"And you have another bowl to make." With that, he stomped off, pulling his mousy wife behind him. The author gritted his teeth, and paused in his work in order to go clean up the mess.

"Here, let me help" Raven said, suddenly stepping in and picking up pieces of the bowl. Beast Boy walked over and started to help as well, glaring off in the direction of the man and his wife.

"Why on earth would someone want to ruin your work like that? Jealous much?" the green boy said. Whitfield sighed, collecting the broken ceramic in his apron.

"George is a person with a hot temper and too much time on his hands... I think her really does enjoy seeing others go through troubles, of his own causing might I add." He stared at the newcomers, scrutinizing them. "Thank you, strangers. I must say I have never seen individuals with coloring like yours before... Is it a condition? Or an artistic choice?" he said, his eyes lingering on Beast Boy for longer than necessary.

"Uh, yeah, it's face paint" Beast Boy managed to get out. "It's all the rage back home in... Umm... Logansville." Raven mentally smacked her forehead and gave him a look.

"I see. Well, I appreciate your help. I hope your stay here in Bizenghast is to your liking..." the artist then retreated into his shop, shutting the doors.

"Bizenghast! So this must have been the town in the past..." Raven exclaimed almost to herself. "Oh, and you couldn't come up with a better name?" she teased him.

"I was under pressure, okay? Gimme a break!" Beast Boy replied with a glare and a crossing of his arms. Raven suppressed a small chuckle.

"I guess... Now we wait." Raven suddenly said, pulling Beast Boy into the alleyway behind Whitfield's shop.

"Wait? Wait for what?" Beast Boy questioned.

"For the ghost to make his move" Raven replied. Surely enough, the sun, which moments before had been high in the sky, rapidly made its descent into the trees. In the darkness of a sparsely lit town, Raven and Beast Boy observed as Whitfield opened his shop doors and exited with the stealth of a cat. He slunk off into the darkness. About twenty minutes later, he returned, and this time...

"Rae, he's got a body! He's dragging someone into the shop!" Beast Boy hissed. She shushed him, wide eyed. The body was limp, but she could tell the person was alive.

"Come on" she said quietly, grabbing Beast Boy's arm and pulling him towards the shop's back entrance. Using her dark magic, she phased them into the building, just in time to hear a slam from what seemed to be the basement trapdoor. She waited a few moments before lifting it with her powers.

"UGH! Rae, d'you smell that?" Beast Boy exclaimed, covering his nose.

"No" she replied flatly, giving him a weird look.

"Well if we go down there, you definitely will. Sheesh, sometimes I envy you people with your normal sense of smell..." Beast Boy said. They proceeded to make their way into the basement after the artist. A little ways down, and Raven was wrinkling her own nose in disgust.

"Yeah, ok, I smell it now. That can't be good" she muttered to her companion. He nodded vigorously, becoming more anxious by the minute. They reached the end of the basement corridor, and the stench was now overpowering. Beast Boy suppressed the violent gag he wanted to let out in fear of being heard, and nearly choked when he peeked around the corner.

A sculpture of what looked like miscellaneous body parts with no rhyme or reason to their connectivity stood in the middle of a room lit with candles. Various bits and pieces of people lay scattered in piles along the floor, the rejects. The artist only used the pieces that he saw fit to grace his sculpture. Arms and legs stuck out from what seemed to be three or four interconnected torsos; human fingers had replaced genitalia, and the hands and feet dotted the extremities in opposing fashions. The piece was held together with what looked like a combination of clay and human entrails, solidified by time and probably days drying out.

The artist himself stood at a table, the body of the man from before lying on it looking subdued but terrified.

"Now now, George, you are to be the last of my creation, before I add a bit of myself to it of course. I've been savoring this day, waiting for it... It was up to you all along, you know. You just needed one final outburst and that was to decide your fate... Oh, I was pleased."

He had taken a scalpel, one that would normally be seen carving the vases and pots he worked on by day. He now ran it along George's jawline in an almost caring fashion, digging the point in ever so deeply to draw a bit of blood.

"You'll be the final touch, and my body of work will be finished!"

"Now hold it right there! You really shouldn't make puns like that, they ruin the whole creepy vibe you'd got going for ya!"Beast Boy had stepped out, along with Raven, from the shadows. He adopted a stance, ready to morph into an animal to stop the crazed artist from hurting the man. Somehow he knew that if he achieved his goal, bad things would happen and his purpose in this vault would be null.

"Ah, so I see you've come to join the spectacle... Well, I might as well allow you to watch" the man saids, before suddenly leaping with surprising agility and diving towards Raven, who, startled, stumbled backwards. Beast Boy turned to try and catch her, and the sculptor took his chance, knocking Beast Boy on the back of the head. Raven fell to the floor, and the artist delivered a sharp kick to her stomach, causing her to double over in pain as he dragged Beast Boy over to the table where he lay him down beside the squirming man,, who was still restrained and gagged.

"Your green pigmentation will make a startling and fascinating take to my sculpture. But which pieces to use..." the artist mused, pulling off Beast Boy's shirt and making to cut into the green flesh with the scalpel.

"Nn... No! Stop!" Raven cried from her hunched position on the floor. The artist turned to look at her, smiling.

"I'll find use for you too, my dear... You have a lovely pallor about you that I just can't wait to sample." He turned back to the changeling, who was slowly coming to but not fast enough.

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" Raven gasped, throwing her hand out as a blast of her dark energy tore the scalpel from Whitfield's hand and into her own. The artist looked murderous, but quickly recovered and made to search for another tool.

"I WILL FINISH IT! MY SCULPTURE WILL BE FINISHED!" he roared, finally coming across a large butchering knife. As he spun back around, however, he was met with a fully conscious Beast Boy who he had neglected to restrain.

The changeling morphed into a large green jaguar, and with a swipe of his claws he caught Whitfield across the face with a blow so hard that it snapped the artist's neck. His hands, still clutching the large knife, lost their grip and the blade went soaring into the air, and as if guided by some unseen force it connected with the contorted neck of the sculptor and cleaved the head straight from the body, where it rolled off into a corner.

"EEEEEEEEEEE!" Beast Boy shrieked, turning back into a human to freak out at what had just happened. "I just... I just killed someone."

"Get.. Get the head. Finish the sculpture" Raven whispered to her teammate hoarsely.

"Yeah... yeah ok." He got up, his shirt falling at his feet, and used the cloth to pick up the head. "Uh... Where do I put it?" he said, looking to Raven for help.

"Well since the thing doesn't seem to have any other heads, my guess is to put it on top... Your choice, smart guy" she hissed, having managed to sit up and lean against the side of the wall. Beast Boy lifted Whitfield's decapitated head and plopped it on top of the mixture of body parts, shuddering as he did so. With a flash, the angelic form of the artist emerged from the mass, and was gone after a blinding light.

Beast Boy immediately rushed over to his teammate, who whimpered when he held his hand gently across her stomach.

"Rae, why do these things keep attacking you and hurting you?" he growled.

"I think it might have something to do with my... Lesser half" she wheezed out, referring of course to her demonic side. "Makes it easier for them to connect with me. I think he ruptured my spleen..." she said in a voice that was quickly fading.

"Rae, use your healing magic! Come on, I know you can do it!" he replied frantically.

"Yeah... I'll try..." she said. In her pain she had almost forgotten that such magic was possible, all she was seeing were black spots dancing across her eyes.

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" she mumbled, and her hands began to glow blue. Beast Boy positioned them over her stomach, closer to where her spleen was. The magic permeated through her cells and pumped through her blood, causing her to gasp. Something was different this time, maybe it was because he was helping her... It seemed more powerful.

"Gar, it's working... You're helping..." she said in a weak voice that grew stronger. Inside her, it seemed like the broken organ was reforming, all it's contents moving back to where they were supposed to be and solidifying. She let out a hiss as the process completed, and then collapsed into his arms. Only then did she notice she was touching his bare green skin. Her first reaction was to pull away and run for cover, but she used her weakened condition as an excuse to see what would happen if she didn't.

'Since when did I become so... touchy?' she thought to herself, raising her arms to place her hands on his shoulders in order to sit up. He stared at her, scrutinizing her; she was afraid to blink. Without warning, he pulled her into a crushing hug.

"Raven, you've gotta stop letting these things get you. I can't handle seeing you like this... It's not right, it's not you. I feel like my insides are tied in knots and my heart might explode with worry and fear every time they hurt you..."

His honesty was muffled a little as he spoke into her cape, and she had to take a few steadying breaths before she pulled him to face her.

"I... I don't even know what to say. You've made me speechless, Gar, and that's something to be proud of... Thank you. It means a lot that you care" she said, her arms still wrapped around the back of his neck. "And believe me, I can't bear to see you get hurt either... It kills me inside" she said, her voice growing quieter as she finished speaking.

They were locked in a sort of trance, then; they stared into each other's eyes for what seemed like ages. Just when the moment seemed complete, and the two Titans felt as if maybe they should dive into those feelings swimming between them, the fog returned and enveloped them once more. They were leaving the dream, and the moment had passed.

Instead of reappearing in the vault as normal, they were somehow transported back into the depths of the Sunken Mausoleum itself. Once the light around their eyes adjusted back to normal, the two heroes gasped.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

A set of large, ornate black double doors which were about ten feet tall now loomed before them. There was a large clock placed on top of them in the midst of an iron gateway, devoid of minute or hour hands; the roman numerals IV and IX were the only thing that graced its face. At either side of the doors two bas-reliefs of mermaids were swimming downwards, their tails high in the air with spikes pointing upwards as spires. They played two harps which acted as winglike decorations on the doors themselves. Two compasses were placed, one on each door, above the harps and in front of what looked like an iron grate.

"That wasn't there when we left, right?" Beast Boy squeaked, still clutching Raven tightly.

"It doesn't appear to lead anywhere, but I have a feeling that if we go through it there's something in there we need" Raven commented, and the two heroes stood. Raven had her arm draped over Beast Boy's shoulders, and his own arm was curled around her waist beneath her cloak to help steady her.

They marched over to the gateway, which as Raven had suspected was simply that: a gateway, nothing behind it. On the side which was supposed to be the front, however, was a golden plaque with an enigmatic poem inscribed in flowing script.

"I know for sure we haven't finished in the vaults" she muttered, "so what's this supposed to be?"

"Maybe it's some sort of reward?" Beast Boy supplied hopefully. "For a job well done?"

"Or a punishment?" Raven murmured almost to herself, and they warily approached the plaque in order to read the inscription.

_"Many lost souls need salvation's light,_

_Many do not deserve it._

_Some cannot find a path through the night,_

_Some must find a way to earn it._

_Twenty black windows look into the cold,_

_Behind which no remains are interred._

_Twenty blue glass panes hold evil untold,_

_A careful, wary hand is preferred._

_Twenty white portals show the blessed undone,_

_Who lack courage a pathway to find._

_Blessed are they who uncover each one,_

_Free each spirit, each soul, and each mind._

_But for those who are few, against ours so many,_

_A guide can be given to aid these._

_A light in the tomb when there might not be any,_

_And a friend to help others find peace._

_Seek to give hope where there was none before,_

_Free up the souls of imprisoned two score._

_To summon Edaniel at the door,_

_Knock once, then twice, then twice once more."_

The Titans had read this together, and Raven perceived a distinct change in the air as they did so, much like the magical bonds being formed when Beast Boy had entered into his contract.

"It's a portal, and whatever's behind it is supposed to be a help to us... Based on what the poem says, anyway" Raven said finally. Beast Boy's eyes lit up.

"Help? In here? Sweet! So they are rewarding us!" he said, fist pumping. He then looked at Raven's expression and ceased his excitement. "What's the matter, Rae? Should we just ignore it?"

"I'm just wondering what all the grandeur is about... All this pomp and craziness. Who knows what we'll be getting into if we call for him" she said softly. "But it's your contract, Beast Boy, you decide."

He stood there a moment, thinking over what she had said. Sure, the doors were a little extravagant, but he didn't see why that would be a bad thing necessarily. Raven's smaller form leaning against him reminded him of the challenges they had faced in the vaults however, and he unconsciously gipped her closer and tighter.

"I'm gonna do it. We could use all the help we can get."

Still supporting Raven, he reached forward with his other hand and knocked, five times; once, then twice, and then twice once more.

Immediately the two doors creaked open, and a gray mist began seeping through and into the rooms, covering and darkening everything. Beast Boy then had the nerve to look up, and gasped. Dripping from the ceiling were dark, ink-like shadows that curled into contorted faces of demons and ghosts, white eyes glowing and menacing them.

Raven grabbed onto Beast Boy with a shriek, as most of these images looked like the stuff her nightmares were made of; flashbacks of the horrors she endured at the hands of Trigon messing with her mind coursed through her, and she blindly zapped at the images with her dark powers, which simply dissipated and then reformed once more.

A disembodied voice then broke the ghostly moans, shrieking "Who dares to call upon the first of the tower guards?!"Raven and Beast Boy fell to the ground in the mist, clutching each other in fear as to what they might have unleashed. They closed their eyes, Raven pulling a black bubble of energy around them as a shield. Suddenly, they heard a POP! and the smell of sulfur permeated her dark magic.

"Alakazam, here I am!"

The Titans opened their eyes; the dark projections and the large portal had vanished, leaving behind the squeaky clean Mausoleum as it once was... And a very odd looking creature.

It was about the size of a common house cat, but it definitely was not one. It had a long curling tail, paws, and slitted eyes that looked almost cartoonish in a way. It's ears were spiked and pointed upwards much like Batman's mask would look, and it's face was seemingly frozen in a cheshire-cat type of grin, except the teeth were serrated. But most shockingly, and the characteristic that struck the Titans the most was this: this cat-creature was lime green.

"Hey! What're you supposed to be?" Beast Boy exclaimed, all traces of fear gone. "Are you making fun of me?"

"Nah, green bean, I've had this form much longer than you!" the thing said. It's voice was a purr that possessed a distinctive playful quality to it, one that Raven was sure she would have problems with immediately.

In response, Beast Boy let go of Raven gently and morphed into a carbon copy of the creature, except Beast Boy's was much darker green.

"Whoa, now THAT's a good lookin' form. Anyone tell you that lately?"

"Okay, enough! Who and what are you?"Raven said, her temper beginning to flare.

"Calm down, demoness! I was getting to that" the creature said, and with a poof of sulfuric magic a smallish handbook (with the words 'Mausoleum Employee Handbook' and an image of the clock-bug on the covers) appeared in it's paw.

"'Greetings, my name is Edaniel.' Edan-yull. E-dan-yell. Gets me every time" he recited, wiping nonexistent sweat from his brow. He continued, inserting his own commentary as he read."I am the first of the Four Tower Guards - well, that almost had to be changed, now, didn't it? - that you must unlock before your tasks within the Mausoleum are complete... blah blah, okay, whatever. You must unlock all Four Tower Guards in order to gain the experience and wisdom required to complete your tasks - sheesh, this is still way too repetitive! I've half a mind to change it! - within the Mausoleum." The green monster slammed and poofed away the handbook, then.

"Any questions?"

* * *

Okay, guys. I've chosen to end it here since it's the longest chapter I have so far, and I wanted to get it posted! But I'll be posting more and answers to your questions and probable confusion will arrive in the next installment! :)

Commentary Time:

Kayla: I've never taken the time to read Beastboy/Raven stories before. This is the only one that has ever caught my interest for more than 1 or 2 chapters. You've really captured the personalities of all the Titans perfectly. I look forward to more!

-and-

Whoops just realized I copied almost word for word another reviewers sentence. I read that the other day and it must have stuck. Haha but she was absolutely correct. The characters are perfect! I feel like I'm getting an extended episode of the original Teen Titans back in my life!

_I'm really glad you think so! I've been trying to make the focus more on the story as a whole, and while the BB/Rae moments are great (because they're so darn cute) they're coming in at a more natural pace than some of the other fics I've happened across. But I'm glad it makes you feel like it's an episode of TT, that's one of the best compliments I could hope for!_

drannakka: well dinah and vincent probably went through the same thing raven and beastboy are going through except they did not finish all four the last one probably killed them.

_You're not far off, it's all in the original Bizenghast series as to what happened to Dinah and Vincent... But for the purpose of the story, I'm going to work it all in there so that people who don't know the non-TT stuff can enjoy it all and not be confused :)_

Juliegirl22: Arrgh! You left it on a cliff hanger! I like the whole story a lot and I can't believe more people aren't reviewing. It's awesome! There's some stuff I don't understand, but you said you'd explain it later, so thats okay.

_Yes, I do love me some cliffhangers once in a while... And never fear, I'll explain all that is relevant to the story in time! And I'm glad you like it, your reviews make me happy!_

Nalael: I love this chapter! Written wonderfully well and with a good sense of mystery. I have a feeling that this is going to be a good plot :D You've captured the personality of the Teen Titans perfectly!

_I'm glad I got their characteristics down, that was one thing I was worried about since while they have indeed grown up and matured I don't want them to change from their core personalities... Happy to know I've got it down!_


	7. The Fairydance

I do not own Teen Titans, nor do I own Bizenghast. They belong to their respective owners, and all I can claim credit for are the concepts presented in this story. For future reference, all non DC Comics-verse scenarios depicted in the story are of my own invention.

CHAPTER WARNING: Some violence and creepy descriptive devices; mild language

* * *

The Sunken Mausoleum - Ch. 7

The two Titans had stared at the little green cat-like creature for about a minute before Beast Boy exploded.

"What do you mean, any questions? Of course we have questions! How the heck are you supposed to help us?"

"I'm like one of those thingies that sits on your shoulder and tells you what to do."

"You mean a conscience?" Beast Boy replied, grasping at Edaniel's meaning.

"I think he mean those angel versus devil things that sit on your shoulders and confuse your judgement" Raven quipped dryly, "but close enough."

"The lady's got it!" Edaniel said, performing a forward flip that landed him in Raven's lap. She shoved him off angrily, trying to get to her feet in the process.

"Rae, you're still hurt... Don't force yourself to..." Beast Boy was instantly by her side, concerned. Raven waved him off, her eyes still fixed on the little green thing that was now bouncing on the balls of his feet, tail twitching in anticipation of something.

"What happens if we miss out on something, say, don't show up? What's the penalty exactly?" she asked.

"Well, he" Edaniel said, pointing at Beast Boy "will die. He'll become one of Bali-Lali's cleaners."

"Cleaners?" Beast Boy piped up nervously, not really liking the sound of that.

"Yeah. CLEANERS!" Edaniel called out, and suddenly dozens upon dozens of hatches opened from the ceiling of the Mausoleum, and wires lowered down some of the most horrifying things that the two Titans had ever seen.

Mangled bodies of what looked to have once been human beings were attached to hooks and gears that connected them to the cables; skin drooped off of bones that protruded in all sorts of angles that were just plain wrong. Eyes hung out of their sockets, flesh blackened by decay and rot seemed to grasp at them feebly, looking to take back some of the vitality that no longer resided in their own forms.

"GROSS! Get them out of here, I get it! ICK!" Beast Boy shrieked, while Raven's normally pale complexion had only turned ashier. She didn't want to imagine Beast Boy as one of those things. The cleaners then retreated into their hatches, which closed with metallic thuds.

"So you can't physically interfere in the dreams, just offer us advice?" Raven established in a firm tone. Edaniel nodded his weird looking head.

"Yeah, my brother Edrear's the one who'll be able to help you out with the fighting and stuff... I'm the brains of this operation" he said, batting his eyes.

"Azar help us" Raven muttered, hand on her stomach which still pulsated faintly from the pain.

"Yeah, well, whoever he is, he's probably not as good looking as me" Edaniel said, his fixed toothy grin turned towards the sorceress in a flirtatious way.

"You? Good looking? You're nothing but a lime-green kitty cat wannabe with weird-ass pointy ears" Beast Boy said with a chuckle. Edaniel suddenly leaped into the air, so high and so quickly that the Titans' eyes didn't have a chance to catch up with him. What fell to the ground in his place was no longer the kitty-cat wannabe form that Beast Boy was laughing at, but something else completely.

Edaniel was a tall, leanly muscular man that looked to be about in his mid-twenties (although Raven was sure that he had stopped aging a long time ago, due to the magic of this place). He had shortish curly blonde hair that gave his face a cherubic quality, although the shit-eating grin from his cat form was still there (albeit minus the spiky teeth... they did seem sharper than normal human teeth, however). He wore a distinctly metrosexual cropped leather black jacket, that basically served as a means to cover his arms and not much else. His chest was in plain view, and on his left pectoral a large black tattoo of a cross was visible. He wore extremely low-cut white pants held up with miscellaneous belts, and knee-high riding boots.

"Now look at this sexy piece of ass, and tell me I'm not good looking" he said, strutting over to them and posing with a wink.

"You aren't good looking. And Beast Boy, pick your jaw up from the floor. You're only giving him more points" Raven deadpanned.

Edaniel let out a bark of laughter and Beast Boy lost the shocked expression from his face, a little disgruntled. At least Raven didn't find him attractive... Or did she? He shut down his worries quickly, not wanting to alarm Raven as she could probably pick up on them with her empathic abilities.

"So what, tomorrow we meet back here and go into the vaults with you?" Beast Boy managed to get out. Edaniel nodded.

"Yep, so I'll see you here as soon as the moon is up!" and with a poof of sulfuric smoke, he had vanished, leaving the two Titans to ponder what had just happened to them.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"I'm so mad at myself for not asking him about the thing that attacked Starfire and I" Raven said the next day as she and 'Garfield' ate lunch on their respective breaks.

"You can always ask him tonight?" Beast Boy offered, taking a sip of his soda.

"The whole point of this mission is to figure things out as quickly as possible so I can report back to Cyborg or Robin in order to deal with it effectively. I was weak and my judgement was clouded last night, so it slipped my mind when normally it wouldn't have."

"Stop beating yourself up about it Rae, it's so not your fault you were healing yourself from a tough battle and you were... hey, what do you mean your judgement was clouded? Clouded by what?" Beast Boy had stopped halfway through his attempt to soothe her as what she had just said was fully processed. Was she distracted by Edaniel's surprisingly good looks? Beast Boy really hoped not.

"Gar, I was just... I mean, you'd helped to heal me, so I had a lot on my mind..." she trailed off, a faint blush dusting her cheeks as she had been so honest and upfront about what she was feeling with him. Where did that come from?

Beast Boy's nerves calmed and his gaze softened. "You know I'd never let anything bad happen to you, Rae... I mean, uh, we're supposed to look out for each other!" He mentally cursed himself for sounding so awkward and strictly 'friendly' in this statement... but that's what they were, right? Strictly friends?

Raven's blush hadn't gone anywhere, and she cursed her rampant emotions repeatedly and took a bite out of her sandwich to buy time in order to come up with a coherent response.

"Yeah, we're supposed to look out for each other. But I'd have done the same for you" she said coolly.

"Rae, I'd have done it even if we weren't teammates to begin with"Beast Boy replied seriously. Raven could sense the anxiety coming off of him as he admitted this, and so in response she reached over and grabbed his hand.

"Thanks, Gar."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

That night they had managed to reach the Mausoleum just as the moon reached its height in the sky, as Edaniel had said. They deposited their gold toll in the Hooded Angel's plate, and were granted access to the subterranean Mausoleum. Edaniel in his cat form, green tail twirling, was waiting for them.

"There you are, slowpokes! I was beginning to wonder what the holdup was."

"Let's just pick a vault and get out of here before I get a headache"Raven muttered, walking over to the corridor that housed all of the riddles.

As she and her two companions browsed the poems, she suddenly made a double take as her eyes skimmed them over.

"Hey, Edaniel... this one's really familiar to a poem I've read in a book before. Is it common for ghosts to pull stuff like this into their own dreams?"she asked the green being.

"Ghosts were once alive, human beings with real human feelings. It's possible that the riddles might be based on something very real that they experienced while alive, something that impacted them. What poem are you thinking of?"

"It's been debated as to who's written it, which is why I ask. Shakespeare is among the supposed authors, but perhaps this is the original?" Raven mused, running her fingers along the plaque. Beast Boy came up behind her and began to read over her shoulder:

"If you see a fairy ring

In a field of grass,

Very lightly step around,

Tiptoe as you pass;

Last night fairies frolicked there,

And they're sleeping somewhere near.

If you see a tiny fay

Lying fast asleep,

Shut your eyes and run away,

Do not stay or peep;

And be sure you never tell,

Or you'll break a fairy spell."

"Well, it seems innocent enough as far as vaults go" Beast Boy said, shrugging. "Fairies are sweet, right?"

Raven turned around and gave him a look that said otherwise. "Fairies are not sweet. All the folklore I've read about them and from what I can tell you from experience says that they are destructive and mischievous creatures at the very least. They love tormenting humans."

Beast Boy looked a little crestfallen, but he trusted Raven's judgement. "Well, hopefully we don't run into any mean ones in the dream..."

"I fear that we will"Raven said with dread in her heart.

"Well now that you've picked out a vault, let's get going! It's sure to be pretty fantastic" Edaniel said in his usual chipper fashion, causing Raven to glare at him as they proceeded to leave the Mausoleum's underground.

"Well, might as well find the headstone... Come on, it's really easy!"Edaniel said, bouncing around on top of other headstones, occasionally landing on Beast Boy's head as they progressed around the graveyard.

"I'm guessing it's that one?" Raven said sarcastically, pointing towards the headstone in question. In it danced a beautiful young girl, her hair flowing behind her back; she held hands with two small winged creatures, fairies, who seemed to be guiding her around the circle of mushrooms that she was dancing in.

"Looks nice enough" Beast Boy commented, again wondering what all the fuss was about. Fairies were sweet, innocent little nature spirits, weren't they?

"That's just what they want you to think" Raven replied.

"Well sheesh, who needs me when you've got Mrs. Know-It-All over there!" Edaniel quipped, earning another glare from Raven. He ignored it as usual and jumped into the ring with the statue of the girl, pretending to dance in a circle as she was.

"That's exactly what you're not supposed to do!" Raven said, exasperated, and she grabbed the little green cat thing by his scruff and pulled him out of the ring.

"Well then what ARE you going to do?" Edaniel said, wiggling his kitty brow in anticipation.

"Uh, the poem said something about them being asleep, right? And to tiptoe around them?" Beast Boy said. "So I guess we just..." he grabbed the two fairy statues and laid them down on one side of the ring, outside of it of course. He then morphed into a gorilla and lifted the statue of the girl out of it, placing her on the opposite side of the ring; it now looked like she was tiptoeing away from it.

Suddenly, the ground inside the ring gave way to the trapdoor which would lead into the dream. Beast Boy morphed back.

"Piece of cake!" he said with a grin.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Once again they were in a forest. Raven looked around much more cautiously this time, however, as she knew how tricky anything with fairies could be. Edaniel on the other hand was gallivanting through the trees as if nothing was wrong at all, and in fact he seemed rather used to this sort of thing.

"Come on kiddos, let's get cracking! It's gonna be tough finding a fairy ring in the dark, and ghost dream like this one usually stay se in the nighttime"

"How do you know so much about ghost dreams anyway?" Beast Boy asked curiously, catching up to the little green cat-thing.

"It's part of my job to know! The Mausoleum exists for one thing: to find restless spirits and store them until they can be processed and moved on to the next life. Ghosts are like static on a radio, they interfere with the living. They're nightmares and confused versions of their former selves, and without us to pick them up and figure out what's keeping them that way, life on the planet would grind to a halt."

Raven winced at his terminology, and Edaniel gave her a pointed look as if he knew much more than his silly exterior showed.

"The Mausoleum has sixty vaults available for storage, and you've cleared ten of them, which leaves us with forty more that are still occupied... Well, thirty-nine after we get this one all sorted" he said, his weird grin expanding on his face.

"Why are all the ghost dreams like this though? Why is everything so... real?" Beast Boy then asked as he held aside a tree branch for Raven to pass through.

"The living rarely dream of reality, while the dead think of nothing else. Cold, hard, reality. They're fixated on what may have happened to them in life and it replays in their minds over and over again until we can process them... Life isn't always pretty, and people die all the time full of sorrow and pain. Some of that pain can stay with someone even in death."

"You know" Raven spoke up for the first time since they had entered the dream, "this might be the first time you've ever said anything really useful and serious about what we're doing" she said. Perhaps they'd have a chance to get some useful information out of him for their own Titans-related mission.

"I appreciate the compliment, sister!" Edaniel said with a wink, which caused Raven to roll her eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, but wait, so what exactly ARE you to know so much about all of this? Were you just drafted like me?" Beast Boy interjected again as they kept walking through the forest. The trees seemed to be getting larger and denser as they progressed, something that Raven noticed but kept to herself for now.

"The Mausoleum is made up of a manager, the staff, and the cleaning crew. The Hooded Angel is the manager, the Tower Guards (like yours truly) are the staff, and Bali-Lali and her cleaners are the caretakers. We're all spirits, made up of pieces of other people's souls... But it's because of this that we can't directly interfere in the ghost dreams without the help of living agents under our employment. That's where you come in, boy-o" Edaniel explained, flicking his curly tail at Beast Boy.

"And once we've finished?" Raven said dryly.

"Well, if you succeed you get a big fat reward. If not... You are assimilated into the Mausoleum, or become cleaners."

Beast Boy gulped. Sure, a reward was a nice idea, but the opposing one that involved becoming a decaying rotting THING only good for doing the Mausoleum's bidding was not at all pleasant. Before he could voice these thoughts aloud, however, he reached out and grabbed Raven's arm and stuck his leg out in front of Edaniel in order to stop them both from walking.

"Guys... I think we're here."

They were teetering on the edge of a clearing, one much lower than the treeline. In the middle of said clearing, there was a perfect ring of mushrooms of various shapes and sizes. Sleeping on the outside of the ring were a dozen or two little beings, fairies. Beast Boy used his superior animal vision in order to scrutinize them more clearly. They looked fragile and delicate, their slit-like eyes closed. They had wispy thin hair that flowed around their small heads; they were all naked it seemed, their long thin limbs curled delicately around themselves. Their wings looked paper thin, and in the light of the moon he could make out tiny veins that spiderwebbed through them, making them look almost like leaves.

They radiated a soft light that warmed Beast Boy's heart, and he took a step in order to descend into the clearing. Raven's firm grip on his shoulder broke the spell.

"Beast Boy, look" she said quietly. He shifted his eyes from the sleeping fairies and they fell upon a young girl with auburn hair in a simple white dress who had descended into the clearing, her eyes alight with curiosity. She sidestepped around the fairy ring, and instead made her way towards the sleeping figures lying in the grass. She knelt down next to one, and gently her hand reached out to touch the fluttering wings.

Beast Boy's eyes widened, for as if they were all awakened by the same touch, the group of fairies rose all together and surrounded the young girl. All seemed innocent enough, as she giggled and laughed as they fluttered about her, threading flowers and braiding her hair. They began tugging at her dress, and some of them had already started dancing within the circle of mushrooms. The remaining ones pulled at her more harshly, and she then jumped into the ring and was dragged along with them as they danced and danced, going around the circle in a mesmerizing rhythm.

"What now?" Beast Boy whispered, his eyes still fixated on the dancers.

"Just wait" Raven and Edaniel said at the same time, although Raven's tone was grim whilst Edaniel seemed cheery as usual.

As if on cue, the girl suddenly began to shriek and try to pull herself out of the fairies' grasp, yanking and tugging as her feet became bloody with the effort of dancing. The fairies ignored her and continued, going even faster it seemed. The girl's arms began to bleed as their long fingers dug into them harder every time she would try to pull them away. Some fairies clambered onto her back and bent her forward, and she began to wheeze under the effort they were putting her through.

"It's going to kill her!" Beast Boy hissed. Raven bit her lip and looked over at Edaniel.

"Well? How do we 'break the spell'?" she asked him, in reference to the poem.

"My guess is you'd better find a way to distract them and get her out of there so she can talk about it to someone... Before they, y'know, rip her to pieces" Edaniel mused. Raven nodded, and she turned to devise a plan with Beast Boy... who was not there.

"Beast Boy?!" she let out a gasp as she saw him bounding down into the clearing in the form of a mountain lion, and when he reached the ring he transformed back into a human. The fairies had stopped their dancing and stared at him in awe, suddenly shoving the bloodied girl out of the ring and pulling the changeling into their dance. Raven swooped down on the girl and caught her before she hit the ground.

"What's your name?" Raven asked her, frantically watching the now green-tinged blur of dancing within the ring.

"L...Lucy" the girl gasped.

"Okay, Lucy, what happened to you?" she asked, her tone becoming more nervous as the dance increased its pace.

Within the circle, Beast Boy was struggling to keep up with them. A fairy had grabbed each of his hands and was pulling him forward, giddy expressions on their faces. Others flitted feverishly around him, a few taking out pipes and flutes and beginning to play a haunting music.

"You're like us, changeling, you belong to us" one of them hissed through teeth that Beast Boy had not realized until now were spiky and frightening. The fairies in fact had become much more unlike anything Beast Boy had ever seen as they danced and danced; their limbs had elongated to become spindly and twiglike, their faces were oval shaped and their eyes slitted and completely black, and Beast Boy could see their bones protruding through their sides.

"I'm... Let me go! I can dance on my own!" Beast Boy growled. The fairies began to laugh and only increased their pace. Beast Boy was beginning to tire, and he tried looking outside of the ring only to be met with the sight of the clearing expanding towards the heavens, the treeline moving so far above him that he could almost no longer see it.

"You will come Underground with us!" one of the fairies cackled, and the whole world then began to spin.

"HURRY!" Edaniel said, looking alarmed as the ground suddenly began to bend and lose its shape around the ring.

"Speak up, girl!" Raven yelled at Lucy, her voice hinting dangerously at the demonic.

"They... It was a fairy ring! I thought they were all legends" she wheezed, "but I was captured by one, and they almost killed me! Almost..." she suddenly began to convulse, and then a smile appeared on her face as the fairy magic left her. Raven sighed in relief, and the girl suddenly changed forms and her angelic state rose into the heavens.

"Good, you solved the dream. Now you've got to get the green bean and get outta here!" Edaniel yelped, digging his claws into the terrain as it became almost a vortex at the bottom, pulling them in.

"Right." Raven steadied herself, trying to push aside all emotions in order to cast a spell that would save Beast Boy... yet her nerves at the thought of the fairies taking him was overwhelming her, and she couldn't concentrate.

"RAVEN!"

The sound of his voice, so desperate and hopeless, jolted her out of her state and she raised her arms which were now crackling with black magic. Edaniel jumped up as the ground began to give way, pulling on her cape and climbing into her hood, freeing Raven's eyes from shadow in the process.

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" she chanted, and floated up into the air; she was now hovering above the fairy ring, and she looked down through her magic shrouded eyes. The fairies were hissing and spitting at her, throwing all sorts of insults and names at her which she ignored, focusing her power onto Beast Boy.

The black light hummed with power, and suddenly her magic morphed into a clawed black hand which pushed through the fairy spells and wrapped itself around Beast Boy, pulling him out of the vortex. With her other hand, she closed the portal pulling the fairies into the Underground, the ring vanishing and the clearing returning to normal. Her eyes then returned to normal, and with a groan she fell back down onto the grass, clutching her head. Beast Boy fell out of the magical grip, pulling himself to his feet instantly in order to make his way over to her.

"Raven! Raven, are you okay?" he gasped, kneeling next to her and helping her sit up. Edaniel was still in her hood.

"Yeah, my head's just swimming with fairy magic. It'll pass shortly" she moaned, rubbing her temples. Without further ado, however, Beast Boy grabbed her and hugged her so tightly that Edaniel yelped as he was jolted and squished by the changeling's arms.

"Thanks for saving me" he whispered in her ear. Raven's arms, still positioned at either side of her head, reached over in order to hug him back in some fashion. He pulled away slightly, smiling at her widely. She was turning a little pink, and he though that was the most adorable thing he'd seen in a while.

"Rae, you're blushing!" he teased. This comment only caused her to blush even more, and she averted her eyes from his for a moment before she realized that she just couldn't look away for too long.

"You're so warm, it's cute" Beast Boy said, again causing her to deepen in color, and he leaned forward in order to brush noses with hers.

Raven's eyes widened at the proximity and she felt a surge in her powers, and suddenly a tree uprooted completely from the ground and fell, crushing a few other ones in the process. Beast Boy pulled back and laughed, standing up and pulling her with him.

"Okay, you two, you're even worse than the other ones. Let's get out of here so I can make myself some pancakes" Edaniel muttered loud enough for them to hear, and as if on cue the fog wrapped itself around the little group and they were pulled out of the dream. Raven, still in Beast Boy's arms, dared not move as she had no idea how to handle the physical closeness that kept her brain all muddled and most of her emotions doing a dance even wilder than the fairies in the ring.

"Okay, folks" Edaniel said, hopping out of Raven's hood once they were once again in the graveyard, "I guess I'll be seeing you two tomorrow night... Same time, you know whatta do."

"Wait, Edaniel, there's something we want to ask you" Beast Boy said, his arm now around Raven's shoulders.

"Look, I'm not officially allowed to perform weddings, but if you can wait a few more vaults my brother can help you out" Edaniel said cheekily. Beast Boy and Raven both glared at him, although Beast Boy's held a twinkle of amusement. Raven finally had the courage to pull his arm off of her, marching forward and stopping in front of the little green Tower Guard.

"Listen, where we come from we're pretty important when it comes to saving the world and stuff" she said, in a very uncharacteristic manner for Raven.

"Yeah, you're part of the Tween Titans! I gotcha, sister" Edaniel said with a wave of his paw. Raven closed her eyes and fumed silently.

"We only came to this godforsaken town because SOMETHING in our city was snooping around one of our former villain's headquarters, and it was trying to take this" she paused, raising her hand as a black-magic encased book appeared with a pop"book from his lair. It then proceeded to attack and wound Starfire and we don't know what it wants, but it could be a menace to the city. Especially now that we've found out about the Mausoleum and all that's going on in here... Things could get dangerous. Care to help us figure it out?" she finished with a glare that managed to silence even Edaniel and his ramblings.

The little green cat monster took the book from her hand and began to peruse it. "I'll take a look for ya, but only because you asked so nicely. Maybe we can figure it all out together, since whatever it was must have some sort of interest in this place."

Beast Boy had been laughing throughout the entire exchange rather quietly to himself, and just as Raven turned to march back over to him in order to teleport them both back to St. Lymans in order to get some rest, a thought occurred to him.

"Wait, Edaniel... You said earlier that we were "worse" that some others... Who were you talking about?"

Edaniel turned around, the book floating alongside his figure in a puffy cloud of sulphureous smoke; his eyes drooped and were pained almost.

"Dinah and Vincent, of course."

* * *

WELL there you go. Sorry to leave it on another cliffhanger, but I started my online course for summer school... Life of a college student. Woo.

I'm going to try to update enough to where I get up to Chapter 10 (at least) before I go on vacation starting in July... Fingers crossed! I'm really enjoying writing this, and I hope all you secret readers (because there are a few of you out there who read it! I know!) like it enough too.

Also, yay for BBRae fluff in this chapter.. Just couldn't resist.


	8. The Hidden Prophecy

I do not own Teen Titans, nor do I own Bizenghast. They belong to their respective owners, and all I can claim credit for are the concepts presented in this story. For future reference, all non DC Comics-verse scenarios depicted in the story are of my own invention.

* * *

CHAPTER WARNING: Some violence; language

The Sunken Mausoleum - Ch. 8

Raven sighed in frustration as she pushed another book to the side, using her dark powers to levitate another one off the self directly across from her. It landed on the table and she began to flip through it anxiously, looking for something, anything, that could help them in their mission.

"Doing some research, dear?"

Raven's head shot up and her eyes met the amused ones of her boss, Mrs. Tucker, who was standing in between the two bookshelves that led to the study area Raven was occupying holding a stack of books.

"Yeah, sorry about that Mrs. Tucker... I'm just really trying hard to find out more about this place" she said sheepishly. Mrs. Tucker chuckled, walking towards her and placing a few books on the shelves as she walked by. The woman must have had such an intimate knowledge of the library that she hardly had to think about where to put some of the books.

"Well, until Mrs. Simmons retired a little while ago, she was the expert on town history. It's odd that you'd be asking and wondering about the town... Vincent was very similar in that aspect, trying to find out as much as he could about Bizenghast..."

Raven swallowed thickly; Vincent had also been under the employ of the Mausoleum, much like she and Beast Boy. Edaniel had told them the story of the two teens the night before, and the memory was fresh and troubling to Raven. However, she sensed that there was something that Edaniel was keeping from them, and she hoped that in time he'd reveal it.

'Or I'll make him' Raven thought to herself.

"I can give you a little briefing on some things if you'd like... Steer you in the right direction" Mrs. Tucker continued, and having placed all the books on their respective shelves, motioned for Raven to follow her.

"When Vincent was asking about the town, I showed him this book" she began, pulling a thin volume from the shelves with the title "German Protestant Towns in the New England Area"

"Bizenghast was founded by a group called the Moravians, in the 1700s. They were a religious sect similar to the Protestants, coming to America to escape and start anew like many peoples of that time. That's all there is in this book, and as I told Mr. Monroe when he was asking me about these things, not much else was kept on record."

"So there's really nothing else about the town on record?" Raven said, a hint of exasperation in her voice. Mrs. Tucker raised an eyebrow.

"There was a fire in the record room, most files were destroyed. We moved many of the town records into a different area of the library after the fire, as they were rather fragile. I can show you if you'll just follow me..."

With that, Mrs. Tucker pulled a set of smallish keys out of her cardigan pocket, and she and Raven began walking towards a door at the very edge of the back of the library, near one of the windows. Mrs. Tucker unlocked the door and they proceeded down a spacious and very lengthy stairwell. Raven gasped as they seemed to be going down below ground; it didn't surprise her as the library's entrance itself was elevated and so was the first floor, yet they made it to the bottom after two flights of stairs. Books on shelves, more of them, lined the floor that they passed in order to reach the bottom.

Upon their arrival, Mrs. Tucker opened another door located between even more shelves of books (they looked to be encyclopedias in many different languages) and Raven's eyes bugged out of her head upon seeing this new room.

"Wow, this was unexpected."

It was a circular room with eight separate shelves of many more books and records lining the walls, and along the floor about four or five glass bookstands holding what seemed to be the more important books were stationed, their contents flipped open to seemingly important pages within.

In the middle of the room was a small round table with a desk chair, and on the farthest wall across from the doorway was a columned sculpture of sorts, looking very roman in artistic nature, and in the middle a diamond-shaped insignia with an embellished R dominated the wall. The R itself seemed to be nestled in the bed of carved flower petals.

"It was a room commissioned by the Rosacrux family, an old patron family of Bizenghast from the 1800s. They funded the building of the library, including this private study for the family's patriarch, Jeriah Rosacrux."

"I see. Do you know anything else about this man?" Raven asked, beginning to wander around the room in search of a book that might be useful to her.

"He was supposedly a quite strictly moralistic man, believing that Bizenghast had fallen into the prey of vice and was becoming rundown. He tried to restore the town by funding public projects such as the library, or the building of the new church."

"Which was obviously never finished" Raven commented, picking up a thick volume and blowing some dust off of it before flipping through it absently.

"Correct. The only ones he ever finished were this library and the town Coda."

Raven looked towards where Mrs. Tucker now stood, at the small round desk, running her hand across a book that was lying there. Raven made her way towards it; it seemed to have been the most recently perused of the books, and she shuddered to think that it must have been Vincent looking at these very pages before what happened to him.

"And I assume that this town Coda was taken down?" Raven asked.

"You can see in the pictures that indeed it was removed, within the turn of the century. It used to contain the Ten Commandments and a few of the Rosacrux family's favorite scripture quotes..."

"Trying to lead the townspeople to perform better lives" Raven said dryly.

"Rachel, you are quite sharp. I am quite glad you are working for me... If only Vincent were still here, I feel that you would get along famously..." Mrs. Tucker displayed a sense of sympathetic sadness that washed over Raven like a tidal wave, and her eyes softened towards the older woman.

"Thank you for showing me all of this, Mrs. Tucker... I'm sure it wasn't easy revisiting memories like that so soon" she said quietly.

"Of course, dear. Now I'll leave you to it, I suppose just... tidy things up down here and you can go on your lunch afterwards" Mrs. Tucker said, faltering once more as she looked at the book of photos that Vincent had no doubt been perusing before his untimely disappearance. Raven nodded, and Mrs. Tucker took her leave.

"Now" Raven muttered to herself, "what were you so interested in down here, Vincent? What does all this have to do with the Mausoleum?"

After staring at the book for a little while, wondering just what might have struck Vincent as so out of place, something hit her. "The Town Coda... It up and vanished from one picture to the next. Why would they remove it so suddenly... and more importantly, who?"

Leaping up from her chair, book in hand, she made her way out of the private study room quickly, dashing up the stairs.

"Mrs. Tucker! Mrs. Tucker?" she called, looking for the woman in order to point this out to her.

"Mrs. Tuck-"

Raven's eyes nearly bugged out of their skull and she had to repress her powers from billowing out in a defensive maneuver, as she was still in disguise. Mrs. Tucker was standing atop one of the bookshelves, looking delirious. At the library's desk was another woman, with gray hair styled in a short pixie cut, her spectacles hanging on a chain around her neck.

"Rachel? Why are you calling for Mrs. Tucker? Are you alright?"

Raven's mouth opened, and she choked on her own breath as she watched Mrs. Tucker make her way to the edge of the bookshelf and plummet off of it onto the ground, her bones cracking and splitting the quiet library with the sound of death. Her blood started to seep into the ground, pooling and running towards Raven's feet. She backed away, eyes flashing between the dead Mrs. Tucker and the woman who so obviously couldn't see a thing.

"N..no, Mrs... Uh, I guess I'm just a little hungry" she managed to rasp out.

"Well, Rachel, you go ahead and go out on your lunch break. And remember, you can tell me anything that troubles you, don't be afraid to talk to good old Mrs. Simmons about anything" she said, giving Raven a look of concern but smiling nonetheless before getting back to her papers.

Raven nodded, turning to look once more at the crumpled body of Mrs. Tucker only to find that it had vanished. The bloodstains, however remained.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"So you're saying she was a ghost?" Beast Boy hissed nervously, trying to keep his voice down as they were sitting at a table quite close to another table filled with laughing uniformed students.

"It's the only explanation" Raven said, biting her lip. "I mean, we both saw her that first time at the library, yet... Mrs. Simmons seemed to know me as if she'd been the one to employ me in the first place. I think Mrs. Tucker's ghost was trying to tell us something, maybe something we need to ask Edaniel tonight."

"You think it has to do with what happened to Dinah and Vincent?" Beast Boy said, lowering his voice even more as he mentioned the two teen's names.

"I'm almost positive. She probably was even saying the exact things to me as she was to Vincent when he was... Searching" Raven muttered, taking a bite out of her french fry absently.

"I still can't believe what happened to them... And the townspeople going about their business as if nothing occurred at all" Beast Boy said softly, thinking about what Edaniel had told them the night before...

_"Listen, boyo, the two who were employed by the Mausoleum before you were good kids. A little troubled and a bit wacky in the head, but doing this work really helped them change and get better" Edaniel said. He was sitting on top of the book Raven had just given to him, and Raven and Beast Boy themselves were sitting on the grass in front of the Hooded Angel, listening._

_"Dinah was contracted, much like you. She got too curious and was roped into it all. Vincent was there by her side the whole time, helping her out... I think he really had deep feelings for the girl if he was willing to risk his life in order to help protect her... Something that eventually he paid with" Edaniel said, his green ears drooping._

_Raven had stiffened at these last words; she too was there helping Beast Boy, but it was because she had a duty to him as her teammate, right? Yet looking over at him from the corner of her eye, she knew that she'd not be able to bear it if something happened to him._

_"He was killed in one of the vaults. Dinah nearly went insane with grief, but she was strong and pulled out of her misery in order to continue forward. She made it so far, until of course the accident happened. There was an issue with one of our holding cells, and... Well... An Unbearable managed to escape."_

_"What's an Unbearable?" Beast Boy asked. Raven, on the other hand, had blanched considerably._

_"A spirit so horrible, so terrible, so despicably rotten that they have to be sent to the deepest pits of Hell if they are ever truly moved on from this life" Raven murmured quietly. Edaniel nodded._

_"Yep, you got it, demoness. I suppose you'd know a lot about that stuff, huh?" he asked, ears quirking a little. "How're you a part of the demon world, anyway?"_

_"Never mind that, keep talking" Beast Boy interrupted, seeing how uncomfortable Raven was getting as the green creature was delving into nasty territory. He reached over and grabbed her hand, lacing their fingers together._

_'No sense is bringing up Trigon unless you've really got to do it, huh?' he thought to himself, and Raven must have heard him, for her lips turned up in a tiny smile and she squeezed his hand back._

_"Anyways, Unbearables are souls that must be specially destroyed. Since Bizenghast is the Senior Guild around here, we get the lovely job of storing them until we can transport them to the Senior Guild of the whole planet, called Neptune's Gold... It's a bit tougher to get to, however, since it's at the bottom of the ocean."_

_"Huh, maybe Aqualad knows something about it since he's from Atlantis... Maybe we should get him involved on the case?"Beast Boy suggested._

_"You're probably right, Neptune's Gold is run by specialized Atlanteans, they probably know something important about your little problem."_

_As much as Raven did not want to get Titans East involved (for the simple fact that she would have to enter into contact with Terra once more, as she was in a relationship with Aqualad) she made a mental note to contact him as soon as she could to ask him a few questions._

_"There are two other Guilds on this continent, one a little ways South from here, and another further West but in Canada" Edaniel continued. "The Unbearables are stored in our facility until all of them are full, and then we transport them to the Senior Guild. One of our charges, however, managed to escape and possess my sister Eniri."_

_Edaniel sighed at this point, and the two Titans waited with bated breath for what he would say next. "She killed my other sister Elala, and we found out later that she was responsible for many interferences inside the vaults, including Vincent's death. She then took it further and began to take control of the townspeople using my sister and her own combined magic. Dinah managed to fight back, after she found out who this spirit was... Her name was Maphohetka, and she was tried for witchcraft and hanged right here in Bizenghast centuries ago."_

_Raven tried wracking her brain at that moment for anything on that name, yet she came up blank._

_"In the course of the battle, I was killed and my brother Edrear killed himself knowing that he too was compromised by her witchcraft. Dinah managed to discover the monster's core, and took the piece of the cross that Maphohetka was stabbed with during her hanging out of her"_

_"The one thing anchoring her spirit to this world" Raven whispered, awestruck. This girl, Dinah, really must have been brave and smart in order to figure it all out on her own._

_"I don't honestly know what she did after all was said and done, but what I'm assuming happened was that Dinah must have used the cross shard to ascend into the afterlife in order to retrieve another Mausoleum seed. It revived all of us, if you consider reviving a spirit back into its former state, including Vincent. When she returned, she removed the cross shard and killed herself in the process. They both were assimilated as the two new Tower Guards, yet... After the new hires had cleared out all of the remaining spirits, they too moved on. Or something. I really don't know what happened to them, one day they were just... gone" Edaniel said, sounding extremely frustrated._

_"And over time we've been going about business as usual, collecting more spirits, and finally one day you two Titans showed up on our doorstep." He concluded his story with a flick of his tail._

_"Well, that must have been the most serious stream of information to ever come out of your mouth" Beast Boy said, trying to ease the tension a bit._

_"Yeah, it's weird for me too, green bean" Edaniel said, hopping off the book and circling it. "Don't know what we've got to do with your little mystery, but I'm hoping it's nothing like what happened last time. We don't need another Dinah and Vincent" he said softly, and then proceeded to descend down the stairs and into the Mausoleum._

Beast Boy shook himself out of the memory, eyes connecting with Raven's. "I'm sure we can figure it all out. There must be something he hasn't told us..."

"Whatever it may be, tomorrow I'm calling Aqualad" Raven said with a sigh, not really anticipating with any enthusiasm the conversation that would most likely end up with having to say hi to Terra, and then Beast Boy becoming distracted by the blonde while Raven herself might be distracted by the Atlantean and his charming good looks.

'Oh shut up, Raven, you have all the good looks you need sitting right across from you' one of her inner emotions spoke up rather loudly, and she suppressed the blush (and mentally smacked the purple-cloaked emoticlone in her own mind).

She looked at Beast Boy, or rather Garfield, sitting across from her and in fact he was quite good looking. She remembered the conversation she had with Starfire just before their encounter with the mysterious creature, and bit her lip.

Why did things like this happen to her at the worst of times?

x.x.x.x.x.x

"Well, guys, I might have figured something out for ya" Edaniel greeted them with such a positive phrase that Raven nearly leapt out of relief.

"Spit it out, kitty cat, we've got a vault to enter" Beast Boy quipped. Edaniel hopped up onto his head as a response, turning him in order to address Raven.

"This book makes a reference to Bizenghast's Second Graveyard, which is us right here down under" Edaniel began. The Titans nodded.

"Well, it also speaks of the implementation of the Town Coda, and furthermore it's mysterious removal at the turn of the century."

At this, Raven allowed herself a sharp intake of breath. "Go on..." she pressed him tightly.

"Well, I can solve that mystery for ya. WE took the Town Coda, and I can show you exactly what happened to it."

With that, he waved his paw and a doorway that hadn't been there moments before made its way into the light of the moon, and the two Titans followed the Tower Guard as he bounded over to it.

"Gimme a sec, I gotta look sexy for this one" he said, and made his quick transformation into his human form. Taking Beast Boy and Raven's hands, he pulled them towards the door and pulled it open via the gilded handle in the shape of a golden dragon.

"Down the stairs we goooo!" he said, taking them two at a time as Raven floated alongside him, Beast Boy trying to keep up.

"What is this place?" the changeling wheezed as they made it down the spiral marble staircase, seemingly carved directly out of the stone it was laid upon. They were, in fact, inside a vast cavernous room held up by intricate marble pillars; the room seemed to go on forever, and the entire floor was covered in a multitude of every type of flower imaginable. The scent was almost overwhelming, but to Beast Boy's animal senses there was something else in the scent of the air. It seemed to be coming from above... He looked up, and screeched.

"RUN FOR IT!"he screamed, pushing Raven out of the way and into a bed of purple flowers.

A large golden box in the shape of what seemed to be a sarcophagus crashed to the ground, on top of what looked to be the remains of a cleaner. It's spidery legs stuck out, bent and broken as the weight of the golden coffin crushed it.

"Oh, not another one! They really need to stop doing that..."an unfamiliar voice sighed, and out of the corner of his eye Beast Boy saw a rustling of the flowers as someone walked towards the fallen box.

He was about to pull himself up when he noticed the position he was in. Raven was underneath him, their legs tangled together. Her hands were on his shoulders as she had grabbed him in attempt to break their fall, and her hood had fallen off a bit exposing her face with some of her violet hair spilling out. She was blushing furiously, and Beast Boy grinned.

"You know, Rae, you look really pretty surrounded by all these flowers. They match your hair." He pulled one arm over in order to play with a strand of it, causing her blush to deepen. She was incapable of speech at the moment, and was looking anywhere save his deep emerald green eyes... Yet that left her the option of staring at his lips, which wasn't helping.

"Ah-hem. When you're QUITE finished" Edaniel's voice called towards them, and with that Beast Boy pulled himself off of her, extending a hand in order to help her up. Edaniel looked at them amusedly before waving them over to the crash scene.

"This is the ravishing Miss Erzebet, she tends the flower garden here at the Mausoleum." He was standing beside a smartly dressed young woman whose hair was so red it looked like fire cascading down her back. She was beautiful, but seemed rather meek and soft-spoken.

"Yes, hello there. Mr. Guildsman, I really think you should talk to Bali-Lali about these cleaners of hers... Or maybe we should get more perfumed flowers, as they aren't masking the smell enough for them to quit trying..."

"What smell?" Raven asked. Erzebet looked at her apologetically.

"I'm sorry, I should have explained... This is where we keep the bodies of the deceased, the souls in the vaults. We don't just leave them lying around anywhere, so we store them here in these containers" she said, motioning to the golden sarcophagus, which upon further inspection was carved with the detailed facade of a sleeping woman holding a flower.

"Ugh, so there's a dead body from god knows how long ago in there? No wonder it smells funny" Beast Boy said, wrinkling his nose.

"Yes, and Erzebet, dear, I've told you many many times to call me Edaniel" the Tower Guard said, taking her small hand and placing a kiss on it. The redhead blushed furiously and nodded. "I'll see what I can do, I'll speak to Bali-Lali as I'm sure your flowers are in excellent condition."

"Thank you, sir... I mean, Edaniel" she said with a small stutter as she spoke the ravishingly attractive man's name aloud for what appeared to be the first time. Beast Boy chuckled, but Raven only rolled her eyes.

"Can we see the Town Coda, please?" she asked.

"Calm your tits, woman!" Edaniel snapped, earning a death glare from the empath. It was his turn to roll his eyes, then, and he linked Erzebet's arm in his own before calling out "Follow me, then, you impatient crazy-pants!"

Raven sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose before being dragged along behind them by Beast Boy. As they walked through the endless field of flowers, a structure began to form in their view from far off in the distance.

"What's that?" Beast Boy asked, pulling Raven forward in order to fall into step with Edaniel and Erzebet.

"It's what ended up of the Town Coda. Here, look..."

They had reached what seemed to be layers of carved rock forming a jagged circle around something. In the middle of the circle stood a statue: she wore a veil on her head and her eyes were blindfolded, the veil coming down to cover her chest but leaving her stomach and arms exposed, while her skirt flowed down towards the base of her feet. Her marble arm was pointing upwards, while her second arm was cut off in half, seemingly pointing at something but removed halfway at the forearm.

"Where's the Coda?" Beast Boy said, expecting to the the large rectangular stone sculpture somewhere around there but nothing came to view.

"It's here" Raven said, lowering herself onto one knee. Around the statue and forming a perfect circle were bits of the town Coda, cut into perfect rectangular chunks of stone; each bit was no longer part of the whole, but expressing a commandment or a saying accompanied by a picture of some sort.

"Which is she pointing at?" Raven muttered, making her way over to the spot where the statue's cut off arm was indicating. It was another piece of stone, but this one looked as if it has been removed and then replaced.

"I put that back once the incident with Maphohetka was over... She had come down here to remove it, to take any evidence of her presence away."

This piece of the Coda was simply that, an image, of a woman burning at the stake with the cycles of the moon crossing over her head, and a noose around her neck. "Witchcraft... This must have been her, then. She really upset the town if they felt the need to make point about it in their Coda" Raven mused, standing up.

"More than once, unfortunately" Edaniel said with a frown.

"So d'you think our monster has something to do with the town Coda and Maphohetka? Maybe Dinah didn't get rid of her all the way..." Beast Boy wondered, but Edaniel shook his head.

"Nope, the Senior Guild sent me all the processed paperwork and official files specifying that she had passed on, and was in Hell where she belongs."

"Well it's got to mean something to that creature, or he wouldn't have taken an interest in a book that details it" Raven said. She stood there, pondering things and trying to make sense of it all as Beast Boy watched her closely and Edaniel flirted with Erzebet.

"I'll talk to Aqualad tomorrow and see if he has any input, but for now let's just get this vault over with before it gets too late" Raven finally said, earning a nod from Beast Boy and a pout from Edaniel as he paused in attempting to get Erzebet to dance with him.

"Can't we stay a bit longer?"

"Not that it concerns you too much, but I'd rather not turn into one of those things" Beast Boy said, pointing back over towards the direction of the squished cleaner. Edaniel sighed, but reluctantly began to follow them towards the stairway.

"I'll be back soon, O Holy Flower!" Edaniel said, planting a kiss on Erzebet's cheek.

"What's he say that for?" Beast Boy murmured to Raven as they ascended the stairs.

"Erzebet means 'Devoted to God'" Raven replied, shaking her head and smiling a little at Edaniel's antics. Who knew, perhaps he was starting to grow on her.

* * *

Ok, that's it for this chapter. Sorry, no vault this time, but definitely in the next one... I needed to put some plot up in this baby for the story to progress! Sometimes I worry that I'll have too much fun just making up the riddles and near-death situations for our heroes to deal with, and never actually get anywhere with the plot...

A lot of explanation in this one, which is much-warranted for all you non-Bizenghast readers out there. Sorry for the lack of scares and gore, though... I miss it too, believe me.

Once again, I go on vacation starting in July, so I'm hoping to get two more chapters in there before I'll be too busy to update (as dealing with my own personal form of Beast Boy, aka my boyfriend, will take up all of my time much like he takes up Raven's time with his antics!)

Hope you enjoyed this one, shoutout to my newest reviewers purpleraven23 and assassin x 007 ... and also to my returning reviewer, Juliegirl22 :)

You guys keep me writing, keep the comments coming as they're like currency to the author! Or cookies, whatever you prefer.


	9. The 13th Arcana

I do not own Teen Titans, nor do I own Bizenghast. They belong to their respective owners, and all I can claim credit for are the concepts presented in this story. For future reference, all non DC Comics-verse scenarios depicted in the story are of my own invention.

CHAPTER WARNING: Graphic and descriptive violence; language; drug use

* * *

The Sunken Mausoleum - Ch. 9

The riddle of that evening was somewhat intriguing to Beast Boy, and it was perhaps for that reason he chose it. Raven gave him an odd look once he had made his selection clear, but since it was his contract and they'd have to get there anyway she knew that she couldn't say much.

"I mean, it's not too ominous sounding, right?" he had said, reading it aloud once more for the group to think about it before they ventured out to search for the tombstone that would lead them into the dream.

'Distorting reality,

Crushing my bones to powder and dust,

My mind is swimming and once again I must

The feeling of floating, flying

Will mask the fear I have of dying,

My lungs, my blood, all yours

Turning to smoke my fears

As I choke on my tears'

"It's... quite enigmatic, yes" Raven offered, turning on her heel in order to ascend into the graveyard.

"Sounds like someone's depressed to me" Edaniel said, shrugging. He was still in his human form, an odd change for the evening, and something should have tipped Raven off as to what his purpose for this was, but she figured that he just wanted to come back later and flirt with Erzebet some more.

"Alright, so... Let's find this headstone!" he said, his green tail curling excitedly as he hopped through the rows of statues and odd contraptions that would lead into the vaults. Raven noted that many of their previous vaults had simply turned to bowed hooded figures, faces obstructed, much like that of the Hooded Angel. She assumed it was because those vaults had been completed.

"Hmm... The riddle said something about smoke right? And choking?" Beast Boy said, stopping in front of the statue of an older teenaged boy, his hands squeezed around his neck with an expression of pain on his face.

"Yeah, this might be it..." Raven said. "But what's smoke got to do with it?"

"Take a closer look, sister" Edaniel said, pointing to something sticking out of the boy's front pants pocket. Beast Boy pulled it out; it looked like a stone cigarette.

"Well, I didn't expect that for sure" Raven said dryly as Beast Boy tried sticking it in the teen's opened mouth. Surprisingly enough, it worked and smoke began billowing out of the statue's mouth, enveloping all of the three until they could hardly see anything.

When it cleared, the entrance to the vault had appeared, and they descended.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

The first thing Raven and Beast Boy noticed was how distinctly modern their new setting was. It looked like the inside of an ordinary home, specifically the den of your average, All-American house. Sitting on the many couches scattered around the room, which was heavily furnished with plenty of entertainment systems (including a pool table and foosball table) were a group of older teens.

"Hey, look, whoa! It's the Teen Titans!" one of them suddenly called out, catching sight of the newcomers.

"Dude, shut up, you're tripping way too hard" another replied, laughing. The laughter seemed to be contagious, as suddenly the whole group of teens were laughing and giggling.

Raven then noticed the rather fancy looking bong being passed around the group, and she immediately frowned.

"This can't be good" she muttered. Beast Boy, on the other hand, pulled her over to the couch and they took a seat next to the boy who looked most at home.

"Yeah, well, whatever man. I'm Cameron. Welcome to my little get-together, Titans!" he said casually, grabbing the bong from the guy on his left and taking a hit.

"Uh, thanks" Beast Boy said. Edaniel sat on the other couch immediately next to Raven (of course next to a cute brunette, typical).

"So, uh, you smoke?" Cameron said, handing the bong to Beast Boy who stared at it wide-eyed.

"Uhh..."

"Come on, dude, you totally do... You're green for Chrissake!" someone on another couch called out to him.

"Beast Boy.." Raven warned, noticing the look in his eyes as he assessed the room, expectant people and then finally back at Raven.

"Rae, listen..."

"You DO smoke, right?" another boy said, and when the Titans looked at him they had to hold back their terror. His face was distorted into a demoniac grin, evil eyes completely blackened and ridges and horns beginning to sprout from his once perfect skin. "You wouldn't want to upset our host, right?"

Raven wanted to open her mouth and give him what-for, but out of the corner of her eye Edaniel shook his head.

"Not now, not yet" he mouthed. "You've gotta let the dream progress, it's his dream."

Beast Boy shot Raven an apologetic glance before leaning forward, pressing his lips to the bong... and expertly taking a large hit. He sat back up, letting the smoke wash through him for a good few seconds before exhaling slowly, and passing the bong towards another guy across the table. Raven's eyes widened, hurt and shocked.

"Hah, who knew BB was a stoner boy? Bro, you're so fuckin' dope, I knew you were my favorite Titan!" the dreamer of this vault, Cameron, said, nudging the changeling before turning to talk to someone else.

"Rae..."

"I don't even know what to say" she muttered, but suddenly she was confronted with a small pipe, and a lighter pressed into her hands.

"Have fun, sweetheart. You look like you need to loosen up!"the creepy demon boy from before said, looming over her. Beast Boy growled at him and draped his arm across the empath.

"Back up, loser, she's got it" he hissed. The kids in the room made oohing noised before returning to their giggling and drug use.

"Rae, you've got to do it, or you'll fuck up the dream" Beast Boy whispered in her ear. She clutched the little glass pipe, filled to the brim with marijuana, and bit her lip.

"I just... It's not that, I'm not..." she tried to get out, but the smoke in the room was already affecting her senses and making her dizzy.

"Just go for it, girl! It's sooo much fun" the brunette next to Edaniel said, winking. Raven took a deep breath, and shakily held the pipe to her lips. She lit the drug in the bowl with a flick of the lighter, inhaling as she did so. The sweet smoke curled down her lungs, entering every part of her and shooting straight to her mind.

"Uhh..." she exhaled, coughing a bit. "Beast Boy... I can't..." she said softly.

"Do another one!" the brunette said menacingly, and Raven noticed through hazy vision that she, too, was morphing into something much crueler. Gulping, she took another hit. Once it was done, she gave the pipe to Beast Boy and sank into his shoulder, her vision swimming and the only thing anchoring her to the world was the heat of his body next to hers, the solidity of his muscles and bones, things she couldn't have realized she had the ability to feel so intensely until this moment.

"Whoa, BB, lucky man, she's all over you!" Cameron said with a laugh. Beast Boy grinned at the dreamer sheepishly before taking a hit himself from the pipe, not new to this feeling of a drug-induced sense of calm. He passed the pipe to Cameron, who eagerly sucked in the smoke.

'Raven's lips were on that before mine' Beast Boy thought to himself, looking down at the girl clutching him in a desperate attempt to keep herself anchored to reality.

"You two dudes should share smoke" another boy called out, and Beast Boy could hear in the intonation of his voice already that he was another one of those morphing demon creatures that plagued this dream. He chuckled and gave a knowing look to this new boy, before turning to Raven and muttering "I'm sorry, Rae, sorry it has to be like this."

Edaniel watched them, nodding his head as the brunette started to point and giggle at him, saying things like "I didn't know that Jericho could turn into a green cat! Whoa, you're trippy to look at..."

"You've got to play along until he's ready" Edaniel mouthed at Beast Boy, who nodded slowly before taking the bong back and inhaling. He then passed it off to Cameron, keeping the smoke in his lungs. Raven turned to look at him, eyes blinking slowly. Beast Boy cupped her face in his hands and pulled their lips together, blowing the smoke gently down her own throat. Some escaped through the cracks, and it made them look like their kiss was on fire.

"That's SO tight" Cameron said, eagerly watching the two Titans' interaction. When Beast Boy pulled away, Raven allowed the smoke to pass through her lips, in a supreme state of shock and unable to continue their little game.

"Let's move on to the big stuff, shall we?" Cameron said, pulling out more drugs. Beast Boy's eyes narrowed at what he saw on the table, at the greedy fingers that pulled the pills and powders, and at the state of the kids who were ingesting them. Cameron was a little worse for wear, and Beast Boy was thankful for his high tolerance of weed in order to discern what was going on. The kids in the circle around them were all flickering from distorted, demonic forms which began to bleed through the cracked bones and disgusting sores that formed along their bodies back into their perfect, clean, and happily drugged up states that were their 'normal' appearances.

'Think hard, Beast Boy, these can't really be what they are' he thought to himself. Raven was in a state that he had never seen her in before, almost catatonic. She was running her hands slowly along his arms and then his torso, wrapping around him until she was holding onto him for dear life. She occasionally would look at him and blink, then stare at his lips and neck and then back into his eyes.

"I've saved the best for myself, of course" Cameron said, suddenly pulling out a syringe filled with what Beast Boy could only assume to be heroin or something worse. Before he could say anything, Edaniel shook his head again. The smoke curling through the room suddenly enveloped the Tower Guard, and he vanished from the couch. Beast Boy looked around the room, and noticed that their party had grown much smaller.

'How didn't I notice that before?' he thought, as the figures flickering from destroyed to perfect would suddenly flicker out of existence.

"Uhnnnnnnn"

Beast Boy jerked his head back to Cameron, who had stuck the needle in his arm and was pumping the drug deep into his system.

"H...hey, where'd my friends go?" he said suddenly, and Beast Boy noticed that not one of the distorted creatures that were there to begin with remained. Raven let out a cough, her hands clutching feebly at the fabric of Beast Boy's uniform.

"Dunno, dude." Beast Boy offered. Cameron began breathing rapidly, looking around the room frantically.

"They wouldn't just leave me, this was my party!" he said in an antsy manner. Beast Boy's grip tightened around Raven's shoulders, but he turned to look at Cameron head on.

"But they did" he said firmly.

"Wha... What's happening to me? Fuck!" The spot on Cameron's arm where he had injected the needle was suddenly turning purple, the veins surrounding the hole blackening and spreading like spiderwebs through his pale skin.

"You're overdosing" Beast Boy said, trying to keep his voice calm and remember that this was only a dream, it had already happened and he couldn't do anything to help this kid except talk him through it.

"But I... Ugh, it's all their fault, it's them who pressured me into doing drugs! I can't die like this, they've fucking abandoned me!" Cameron said wildly.

Beast Boy understood, then, why the faces and bodies of Cameron's friends turned so grotesque and distorted. The representation in Cameron's mind of peer pressure and the evil nature of the drugs he was taking was being blamed on his friends, who had obviously left him after he had fallen into a state of too much and too heavy drug usage.

"Cameron, listen. Your friends didn't do this to you... You did. Think about it, they must have asked you to stop and they must have told you it was wrong, but you're the one with the parties, the one with the 'better stuff' that's killing you right now."

Cameron's blackened veins were now reaching his face, pulsating and crawling towards his eyeballs, which began to burst from the pressure and black sludge oozing out as he screamed.

"You did this to yourself!" Beast Boy shouted over him. "You need to take responsibility and the blame for your own demise! It's all on you, dude, you've got to own up to it and you'll be free!"

Cameron's screaming stopped, and he looked through gaping black cavities at the changeling who was still clutching onto Raven tightly; they were rooted to the couch, and Beast Boy couldn't push his way up off the couch as the thick smoke pushed him right back.

"My friends... They wanted to help me?" Cameron said quietly, the sludge dripping down from his eyes and into his mouth.

"Yes! Look, they just wanted you to get better!" Beast Boy said, and suddenly with a wave of his hand all of Cameron's friends reappeared. They glowed with health and concern laced their features as they gazed upon the blackening form of their friend.

"I'm... I'm not alone... I did this to myself..." Cameron managed to let the words escape his mouth before the sludge filled his lungs, coming up and dripping onto his clothes. He was engulfed in a large white light, and suddenly his angelic form was released and the dream evaporated.

Beast Boy immediately turned his attention to Raven.

"Raven! Raven, oh Rae, please don't be like this... Come back!" he said, shaking her as they reappeared on the grounds of the Mausoleum. Edaniel was there, leaning against the statue with his arms crossed.

"Good job figuring out my hints. Don't worry, that should pass in a minute or so, the Mausoleum should suck the effect right back into the dream where it belonged before it sends it off for processing."

As he spoke, Beast Boy's vision began to sharpen and Raven began to stir. Her blood began to pump at a normal pace again, and she shook her head to clear it.

"Oh Azar help me, that was rough" she muttered, sitting up fully and holding her head.

"Raven! Shit, are you alright?" Beast Boy said, now aware that the effect was fully gone. Apparently, however, so was Raven. Without further ado, she stood up and towered over him kicking him solidly in the chest.

"What the hell!" Beast Boy yelped, morphing into a bird as he soared through the air due to the force of her kick. He landed on his feet again in human form a few feet away, but he marched right back up to her.

"I can't believe you just kicked me!" he fumed.

"And I can't believe you do drugs!" Raven screeched, raising her arm to smack him across the face. He caught her wrist in his hand before she could, however, a deadly glare on both of their faces.

"It was a while ago. I quit two months ago, okay? I'm not too proud of it" he said. His honesty caught her off guard, and the red spark that had ignited in her eyes died down.

"I've been going through tough times ever since we've been, you know, growing up and stuff. Plus when Terra came back... Let's just say it wasn't easy seeing her with Aqualad."

Raven quieted her rage even more at this statement, wondering why she felt so perturbed by this admission of his.

"She rejected me at that High School, and when she came back to us I just knew that I couldn't be around her anymore, she was bad for me. It was one of the hardest things I had to come to terms with, but I did. I was mostly worried about being so angry all the time that I wouldn't be able to control the Beast..."

Raven's eyes widened at this, knowing full well how dangerously strong that side of Beast Boy was.

"I just took it up. Robin never knew about it, though I think Cy kinda figured it out... He's my best friend, of course he'd notice if I became suddenly way less hyper, right? It calmed me down, I was able to chill out and let go of all the hard feelings I had towards everyone, and I got a chance to impress you with my new ability to settle down" he said, a small smile forming on his lips, his fang sticking up.

"Why'd you quit?" she said stiffly. He looked at her and sighed again, lowering the arm he still had in his grasp but not letting go of her.

"Because being around you a lot more helped me a lot more than the drugs did... I had something to look forward to that wasn't, you know, illegal. You were always there just reading, meditating, drinking your tea, and sometimes even talking to me without any insults or rude comments... It was a nice change from our early years. It was what I needed" he confessed, pausing a moment before steeling himself for what he was about to do.

Much like before, on the couch in the dream, Beast Boy let go of her arm and cupped her face in both hands, pulling her towards him and locking their lips together.

Raven didn't know what to do, think, or how to act. Her inner emotions were dancing and screaming and turning cartwheels, and she was sure she heard a few trees uproot in the distance. Her eyes wide, she couldn't process what was happening to her. His warm lips were on her own, and suddenly they weren't. She wanted to whine at the loss, but she kept her composure.

"I still need you, Rae. Please don't hate me for that, it was a mistake."Beast Boy said, no longer touching any part of her in order to give her some space to either process or rage at what he had just done.

What he did not expect, however, was her shaky hands reaching up to lock behind his neck and pull him back down towards her in for another kiss. This time their lips moved a little, and his arms snaked around her small waist underneath her cloak to pull her closer to him. After a few moments, she pulled her lips away.

"I forgive you, and I'm sorry you had to go through all that. Truth is, on Azarath I was placed under the influence of many different drugs and hallucinogenic trance inducers during my youth, and they did horrible things to my mind in attempt to... well, train me against such things. I have a really negative connection when it comes to things like this" she said quietly. His eyes softened, and he pulled her in for a hug.

"Rae, I'm sorry that our first kiss was drug-induced too. Er, well, unless you want to count this as our first real kiss" he said with a small grin.

"Yeah, let's."

"Any chance you could do it again? It'd be the perfect conclusion..."

The two Titans whirled their heads over to where Edaniel had been standing this whole time, a small videocamera in his hand and a cheshire-cat grin on his face.

"I bet your teammates would have a field day!"

Needless to say, the videocamera was confiscated.

x.x.x.x.x.x

That night, the two teammates got into bed much more shyly and self-consciously than they normally would have. It was a chaste night of sweet kisses and warm bodies pressed close, as they discussed things and talked about their own personal pasts and goals and aspirations. They shared things about themselves that not even their teammates knew, and the two of them grew closer in intimate knowledge of the other.

"So, Rae, does this make you my girlfriend?" Beast Boy had asked while holding her in the dark, under the warmth of the blankets. He pressed a soft kiss to her jawline, and then trailed a line of kisses until he reached her lips. "Please?" he asked.

"Since you asked nicely" she replied with a small smile, running her hands through his green hair and pulling his grinning face down to her for another, much more passionate kiss.

"Just remember, we have a mission to focus on and we still have the vaults to clear... And dammit, I still need to call Aqualad!" she groaned. Beast Boy chuckled.

"Should we tell them first? Or d'you think Starfire would have our heads if anyone but her knew before she did?"

"The latter" Raven said with a small sigh. "Can we just keep it to ourselves for now?"

"You mean ourselves and Edaniel" Beast Boy corrected, kissing her neck and nibbling on her earlobe as he made his way back to her lips once more.

"Mmm, yes, just us and the green kitty" Raven said, her eyes closing in bliss as his mouth ran over her skin. "And, Gar..." she said, using his real name.

"Yes, m'lady?"

"Remember who you've gotten yourself involved with. We need to take it slow... I can't handle too much or my emotions might go haywire" she said softly, a small glint of amusement in her eyes when she opened them. He gulped.

"Haywire in a good way, right?" he said, his voice drying out a little. She laughed.

"Let's not test that, shall we? G'night, Gar" she said, kissing him one last time before rolling over to nestle into him. He draped his arm across her, planting a kiss on her shoulder through her leotard.

"Your laugh is beautiful, Rae" he said.

"Night, Gar!" she said again, but he could hear the smile in her voice.

"G'night" he replied, before settling in for sleep.

As the two Titans dreamed away, content with finally finding each other and being able to bask in the pleasant emotions of a romance just blooming, they were unaware that they were being observed from the outside of their bedroom window.

The hooded figure took in what was said, what actions were committed, and then took its leave, new knowledge in hand and the plan being able to progress even better than it was foreseen.

* * *

Yep, okay. This one was shorter, I know, and super quick update... but people wanted to see the vaults! So I gave you a vault.

No idea what on earth inspired me to write this chapter, in complete and utter honesty. Sorry if any of you are sensitive to drug use (in a positive or negative way) but my intention with this chapter was in fact to paint a negative picture. Drugs CAN kill people, and cause bad things to happen. I'm not saying that people should or shouldn't do whatever they want... That was the point of this chapter. They have a CHOICE.

Beast Boy's surprise drug use, of course, was something I decided to explore because of the way his character acts in the animated series. I have no idea if he's the same way in the comic, but I apologize if he strays from that in this depiction. In my mind, he has and always will sound like a little stoner kid to me xD Just listen to the frequent using of the word "dude" and other such things, especially if you've been keeping up with the new "Teen Titans Go!" series... There are so many 'Stoner BB' references in there that I couldn't help myself. I just had to do it. xD

I apologize if this insults or offends anyone (but Raven effectively kicked the crap out of him for that particular choice he made... After all, they're crime fighters and in most of the country weed is illegal!)

On another note... THE BBRAE FEELS! I love writing cuteness between them, and I justify the 'easy' way they fell together at the end of this simply because I don't believe Raven to be THAT closed off at this point in her life, and BB is not THAT goofy anymore (remember, they've grown up a bit!)

NOTE: Chapter title in reference to Beast Boy's secret being revealed... Arcanum means just that, a mystery unresolved. Each chapter title comes straight from Bizenghast, I've just warped a few of them to suit this story or moved them to where they would best fit the content of the chapters... That's another mystery solved, I supposed ;) If anyone was wondering, that is.

Shoutouts to new reviewers Cuervos Bestia and jakefan, and returning reviewer Juliegirl22 :D

Leave me your comments, I've been getting more traffic on this story and I love hearing from you all! :)


	10. The Fly-Trap

I do not own Teen Titans, nor do I own Bizenghast. They belong to their respective owners, and all I can claim credit for are the concepts presented in this story. For future reference, all non DC Comics-verse scenarios depicted in the story are of my own invention.

CHAPTER WARNING: Graphic and descriptive violence; language

* * *

The Sunken Mausoleum - Ch. 10

Starfire could tell when she was not wanted. In fact, it was fairly easy for her to figure out that she really shouldn't be present in a moment such as this one, yet the blanket draped over her shoulders and Robin's firm hand keeping it there prevented her from getting up out of her seat in the Batcave and making her exit.

"She was a liability."

"No, she was doing just fine! We had everything under control, until you showed up and started ordering us around!"

"I know how the Joker fights, I know what moves he makes better than anyone. Her optimal positions were the ones I was advising her to take, Robin."

Starfire glanced nervously back and forth at the two arguing heroes; Batman and Robin were normally viewed as a team, not at one another's throats.

"She's used to taking orders from me, not you Bruce!" Robin spat. Batman's eyes narrowed behind his mask.

"And what if I hadn't been there to save her today? Thankfully I thought to bring the antidote to the new Joker gas, or she'd have laughed herself to death! What would have happened, tell me, if I wasn't there?"

"She wouldn't have needed saving if you hadn't confused her!"

"Are you really so keen on losing her? Really so keen in putting your loved one in the face of probably THE most dangerous villain in Gotham?"

Robin's hand tightened on Starfire's shoulder and the two briefly met each other's eyes. With a glance Robin was back to staring down his mentor and former boss.

"I never wanted her to get hurt, and I never want to see her that way" he said firmly but with a softness that caused Bruce's own eyes to lose some of that hardness he was known for maintaining.

"Then perhaps 'she' has something to say about it also, if you will permit me" Starfire spoke up from her spot in the chair. Batman and Robin's gazes shifted quickly to focus on the Tamaranian, and she blinked a few times before continuing.

"I am willing to do whatever it takes to best the Joker, but I believe if we are going to succeed in the kicking of the butt we must work as one. Robin, you always speak of us as a unit, a team... That is what we must become. We cannot spend time worrying about the bickering and the fighting."

Batman's eyebrows raised under his mask, and he let out a deep breath that he didn't realize he had been holding. "Well, Richard, let me put it this way... You couldn't have found a better girl if you'd tried."

Robin began to blush, and Starfire smiled up at him with love in her eyes.

x.x.x.x.x.x

"Yeah, it was a close one... Lucky Batman was there to save her butt."

Cyborg had been passing on an update on the goings on in Gotham to Beast Boy and Raven, who were currently enjoying a day off. Choosing to spend it in the Mausoleum was an odd one, but Beast Boy insisted on packing a picnic and bringing it to Edaniel (who had dragged Erzebet out to join them for the occasion, citing 'double dates are better dates!' as his reasons).

They were currently spread out on the grass to the side of the Hooded Angel, eating a packed meal of cold roast beef and green beans with rolls and apple pie for dessert. Beast Boy, of course, had packed a tofu patty on a wheat bun and was munching on it thoughtfully as he listened to their cybernetic teammate.

"So she's okay, though?" Raven asked worriedly.

"Yeah, you know, being an alien has its perks. She was much more resilient to the gas and it didn't have as violent an effect on her as it could have... A mistake the Joker probably won't make again if he gets the chance."

"And Robin still wants to put her out there? The Joker must know that Star's his weak spot... He'd probably want to do anything he could to hurt her in order to get to Robin" Beast Boy said seriously. As he spoke, he gave Raven a meaningful look that caused her spine to tingle a bit. He knew that if they were ever in a situation such as that, if anything had happened to Raven...

"Uh, well, it was Star's idea to keep at it in the first place. She talked some sense into them both I think... Not to mention that her presence as it is must be helping out... Mourning, and all that" Cyborg said sadly.

"Maybe Barbara can help them out some, I know she's been honing her skills as she's sent quite a few cases over to us that none of us would have even picked up on until they were much bigger"Raven mused, thinking of poor Barbara Gordon (now ex-Batgirl) confined to her wheelchair but brilliant as always.

"Probably, I'm sure she's devoting all her time to that. Well, I gotta get back to work, you two just keep at it. Contact me if you get any other leads, but you're on the right track by calling Aqualad. He's your best bet for now." With that, Cyborg disconnected.

Raven closed her communicator and set it down next to her; reaching for her paper plate, she was about to take a bite of her roll when suddenly she felt an arm around her waist pulling her towards the smiling face of Beast Boy, who sidled up next to her so that she leaned against him.

"What's that for?" Raven asked, somewhat amused.

"Now I can cuddle on you and not have to worry about our little secret getting out!"he replied, kissing her cheek and causing her to blush profusely.

"Awww, you two are just the cutest bunch of caseworkers this joint has ever had!" Edaniel said, picking up a green bean, popping it in his mouth, and proceeding to suck on it in a rather indecent manner that caused Erzebet to giggle and Raven to roll her eyes.

"But, you two lead such dangerous lives as heroes! I can't imagine what that's like" Erzebet said meekly, poking at her roast beef.

"It's not too different from working the vaults, really" Beast Boy offered. "The only difference is that we're dealing with temperamental villains instead of ghosts."

"I still don't see the difference" Erzebet said, cocking her head to the side.

"Ghosts once were people, with real problems and real fears, hopes, dreams... Most of them average, some of them ambitious. But it all comes down to the human psyche when we go into the vaults... Villains are out to cause destruction of the public dreams and hopes that people like these ghosts once had. In many cases, the villains of their worlds are what they are tormented by, much as society is tormented by the villains in the real world. We fight villains no matter where we go" Raven offered sagely, effectively shutting down conversation as the others paused to let that sink in.

"Another reason why I love that you're my girlfriend... You're so damn smart" Beast Boy said, reaching over to pull her in for a kiss. Raven's heart leapt as the word 'love' left his lips, despite the fact that it was used in another way. Somewhere in the distance as their lips met, a large boulder was encased in black aura and promptly split in two.

When they pulled apart, Raven shook her head a little to clear it from the murky fuzzy feelings that were fogging up her mind, but smiled at him nevertheless.

"Okay, let's call Aqualad and get this over with" she said, a feeling of dread washing over her as she knew she would have to interact with Terra in a moment as a result.

She had never truly forgiven Terra for the stunt she had pulled all those years ago; the betrayal, the pain she caused the team was something that stung even now. Not to mention how Terra had affected Beast Boy, as she was his first real crush. Raven's jealousy during those times was apparent only to Robin, who said nothing. Their connection was something that sometimes Beast Boy himself envied, despite the knowledge that Robin was like a brother to Raven.

Terra had deliberately gone after Raven first when she attacked the Titans, savoring the feeling of destroying the 'other girl' in line for Beast Boy's heart, for even she had figured out that something was up between Raven and the changeling. She used this to exploit Raven's anger and to bait the empath during their battle, for bringing up Beast Boy at all was the trigger that set off Raven's Rage.

When Terra had returned, she had initially lied to Beast Boy and pretended to be an ordinary high school girl with no connection to her past, although this was completely untrue. Of all the Titans, Raven was the least enthused upon hearing the news from Beast Boy that she might have come back to life; deep down inside of her, Raven knew that it was her own doing and her own magic that had revived her when she had defeated her father. She kept silent, however, not wanting to reunite the green boy with his crush out of selfishness and a lingering grudge against Terra.

When she had finished high school, however, Terra came out of hiding and revealed herself to the team. Beast Boy by then had moved on, and had encouraged her return to the Titans, but instead to the East section of the organization. Raven had done a small victory dance in her head (or rather, Happy and Love grabbed each other and started jumping around like wild animals) when she had heard the words leave his lips, and simply expressed her contentment with the plan.

As she pulled out her communicator again with a sigh, a small part of her smirked as she realized that she in the end had won, and Beast Boy was hers... The vindictive side of her would love to dangle that in Terra's face. Yet her rational side glanced over at Beast Boy before she made the selection to Aqualad's communicator and kissed him softly on the cheek.

"Gar, you're gonna have to scoot over a bit" she said. Beast Boy's eyes were pleading.

"Can't we at least tell them? Please?"

"Starfire first" Raven warned again, and that effectively scared Beast Boy enough to scoot over the barest minimum he had to.

"Raven calling Aqualad, come in Aqualad" she said in her monotone. Almost immediately the screen buzzed to life, and to Raven's dismay it was Terra who answered.

"Raven! Hey, sorry, Garth is kinda... H...hey, stop it Garth, I'm talking to Raven" she said, turning red a bit as Aqualad was doing... something, Raven could only imagine what (and she really didn't want to) off screen.

"Oh? Hey, Raven!" Aqualad pulled himself into view, his face a little flushed.

"Yeah, ok. I don't wanna know. I'm calling about some information you might be able to help us with for our current mission" Raven deadpanned in a businesslike tone.

"We? Who else is with you?" Aqualad asked with a raised eyebrow. Beast Boy sidled over into the screen's view, his arm draping 'casually' around Raven's shoulders.

"Green bean at your service!" he quipped.

Terra's smile grew just as Raven's insides twisted a little both from her elation at the physical contact (in front of Terra, take that!) and her displeasure at the wide smile her boyfriend received from the blonde.

"BB! Nice to see you!" she said, while Aqualad waved in greeting.

"Yeah, right back atcha!" he replied.

"If we're done with the shenanigans" Raven said, a little annoyed and wanting to end this call as soon as possible. "Aqualad, you're from Atlantis. We're on a mission where your knowledge of a place called Neptune's Gold may be helpful to us."

At the mention of the place, Aqualad's face turned serious and a little paler than usual, while his black eyes darkened and his lips thinned.

"Neptune's Gold is a place that I've only seen once in my lifetime. Specially trained Atlantean magicians live there, and the only actual 'magic' of our world goes in to keeping that place a fortress where nothing can get out. It's basically a portal into the deepest pits of Hell, some call it Tartarus itself. It's named after Neptune for a reason, it was said to have been created by the Sea God himself in order to send the worst of all the lost souls into a place fitting for the crimes they have committed, whether in life or after."

Raven's eyebrows knitted in frustration, taking in all that was being said. She glanced over at Edaniel, who also was listening intently while holding Erzebet's hand. The redhead's eyes were wide with fear as she took in another part of the lifestyle she was a member of.

"We've been contracted by one of the North American Guilds" Beast Boy finally said. "I've been contracted" he corrected softly. Raven gave him a look.

"We" she said, reaching up and grabbing his hand that was still draped over her shoulders. "We're sending all the lost souls in this Guild back to where they belong, only because the case we were working on back in Jump City led us here."

"Whoa, you're not in Jump? Where are you?" Terra asked, curious.

"In a town called Bizenghast, it was the only lead we had in the case. The monster who attacked us seemed interested in this place, specifically this Guild. We're worried it might have something to do with an Unbearable" Raven replied. Aqualad's eyes narrowed.

"Let's hope not" he said.

"I highly doubt it has anything to do with THAT particular Unbearable, she's gone for good kiddos!" Edaniel suddenly interjected.

"Who's that?" Terra asked.

"Edaniel, he's one of the Tower Guards working here at the Mausoleum that contracted us" Beast Boy replied, reaching to grab the communicator (and in doing so he grabbed Raven's other hand) to turn it to face the now grinning blonde.

"Whoa, he looks like Jericho!" Aqualad exclaimed.

"Just be glad he's not in his cat form"Raven deadpanned with a roll of her eyes, pulling the communicator back to focus on her.

"Anything you can tell us about Neptune's Gold would be useful" she asked again.

"There's not much to tell. All the souls that get sent there from around the world only remain contained for a fortnight, and then the magicians dispose of them. There's no way back out, just a way in. Maybe it's that very reason your perp is curious... Maybe it wants to know how to avoid getting sent there for the rest of eternity?" Aqualad offered. Raven thought about it for a moment before shaking her head.

"It could be a million reasons, but what you've told me might be of use. It seemed distinctly interested in this very Guild."

"Maybe it wants something from here, before it gets sent to the big one in Atlantis?" Beast Boy said. Raven's eyes widened.

"Beast Boy, you may be on to something. Edaniel, how many Unbearables are stored here right now?"

"Just three, as you remember Maphohetka managed to get out. The others stayed put, we're waiting to fill up the rest of the containment cells before sending them out to Neptune."

"What if it wants to unleash the Unbearables?" Terra spoke up. Raven gave her a look that clearly said much about what she thought of the geokinetic's comment.

"If it did, we'd be in deep trouble."

x.x.x.x.x.x

"Raven, come on! Can't we please just..."

"No. We've got to keep moving."

Beast Boy sighed but followed after his steadfast girlfriend. They had finished talking to Aqualad and Terra, packed up their picnic and returned to St. Lyman's for a post-lunch 'nap' which turned into an experimental make-out session where Raven began testing her emotional limits (and Beast Boy experienced this same issue, as it turned out, though in a completely different way).

"But it was so nice! Edaniel would have let us have the night off, right?"

"Nope, sorry my little beanpole. Can't control the rules, and we wouldn't want to see a green cleaner anytime soon would we?" Edaniel, back in his cat form, trotted alongside Beast Boy with a shit-eating grin that the changeling simply wanted to wipe off his face.

"Grrrr, fine. Let's get this finished quick, I wanna go back to bed!" he said with a wink towards his girlfriend (he could say that now! He finally could call someone his girlfriend!), who blushed and pulled up her hood.

"The center of this dream is where we'll find her, based on what the riddle said..." Raven said, clearing her throat as they continued to press on. The landscape in that night's vault was odd, somewhat linear. The trees were all very spindly and bare, dead with vert few limbs. They were scattered in an almost perfect pattern, perfect in the sense that they interwove between one another in straight or diagonal lines that looked simply unnatural.

"Yeah, what did it say? Uhh...

Unravel my web

Enter my head

Do this all before you are dead?" Beast Boy recited from memory. "Shortest riddle yet."

"I just love the cheery ones like this!" Edaniel said, leaping up to land on Beast Boy's shoulder. "Now carry me, handsome, I'm tired."

"From what, too much flirting with Erzebet?" he snapped back.

"Yeah, looking this good has a price" Edaniel replied, batting his eyes.

"Will you two shut up? I think we're here" Raven said, as they had reached the center of the strange lines of dead trees where a much larger one rested. More lines of trees spun out from this center in a circle, completing the forest.

"I think something's up there?" Beast Boy said curiously, approaching the tree slowly.

"Careful!" Raven hissed, catching up with him. Her senses were alerted, as suddenly it seemed that the trees around them were watching them. Their few limbs creaked slowly and almost seemed to move.

Upon reaching the center, Beast Boy looked up into the dark depths of the branches trying to figure out what was up there. Suddenly, it moved.

"EEEEE!" he shrieked, grabbing Edaniel from his shoulder and using him as a shield.

"Hey! I'm too important and sexy to be used as a shield!" Edaniel said, squirming.

The thing in the tree suddenly leapt down, landing in front of them. It was a girl, her long black hair hiding most of her face. She wore a dress of long silky black fabric that looked as thin as cobwebs, and the sleeves were so long that they covered her arms completely. She seemed to be quite beautiful, in a gothic and mysterious way.

"Who... Who're you?" Beast Boy said cautiously. The girl suddenly looked up from under her curtain of hair and Beast Boy's blood ran cold.

"I am Arachne" she hissed; her eyes were completely black, beady like an insect's, and she had two long fangs that glinted razor sharp. With a snarl, her arms became long and spindly and her dress gave way to six more legs, and she towered over the green boy, poised to strike.

"Rae, do something!" he screamed, hoping for his girlfriend's dark powers to uproot the tree and squash this bug, but nothing came. "Raven?" he squeaked, and turned around to see that the lines of trees had morphed into a sticky, black web-like substance that had entrapped Raven in it's clutches.

"Gar! Run!" she managed to get out before the black silk wrapped around her lips and stifled her. Beast Boy turned around to meet the smiling face of Arachne, who hissed violently before raising her front legs to hit him.

He dodged her, sending Edaniel flying as a result. The little green cat landed on one of the tree-structures and thus also became trapped within the sticky goop. Beast Boy morphed into a pterodactyl and flew, not wanting to touch any of it. Arachne was following him quite closely, spitting out more of the black spider-silk from her mouth in attempt to trap him. He landed on a small patch of ground that had no black stuff on it and morphed back.

"What's your problem, girl? Stop that, that's definitely not good for you" he shouted at her, taking flight this time as a hawk and heading back towards Raven as he needed to free her. The spider-lady noted this, and began climbing her web much faster than he was in order to reach the empath, who was struggling against her bonds. The stuff over her mouth prevented her from casting any spells, and it was strong enough to feel like metal holding her back despite it being made of black sticky silk.

Just as Beast Boy dove downwards to try and reach Raven, Arachne appeared out of nowhere and spat at him in his hawk form, catching him full-on and pushing him far back enough to get him stuck in the center tree of the entire web, where they had found her initially.

"I'll enjoy you later, but first... Let me partake in your lovely friends" she hissed gleefully, making her way back to Raven. Beast Boy struggled and struggled, turning into various animals before realizing just how stuck he was. He couldn't let that monster eat Raven!

He turned into a bloodhound and barked, the black restraints keeping him from escaping the hold of the web. Suddenly, however, his more sensitive nose caught the smell of something... rotting. He turned back into a human and turned in his bonds a bit, looking for the source. When he found it, he screamed.

The decaying corpse of a woman's body was nestled in the tree, also restrained by the silk. Her eyes were hollowed out, her flesh rotting clean off and her bones protruding from some areas where they had been broken... Upon closer inspection Beast Boy discerned that they had broken in her attempts to free herself. As he looked more closely, he saw a photograph of what he assumed to be the woman and Arachne in life, smiling and looking happy together.

After swallowing down the bile that rose in his throat, he morphed into an eagle and used his superior vision to look at the other trees, and nearly threw up again as he saw parts of other bodies nestled in them.

'She must have been some sort of serial killer... And this must be her mother right here! Something must have happened to her, maybe she would Entice her prey with her looks, since she was quite beautiful, and then weaving a web of deception and lies that all led back to her... her mom must have found out or something' he deduced. He looked back over to where the monster was using her sharp teeth and legs to cut through Raven's bonds, to get better access to the meat. Beast Boy suddenly realized how to free himself, and nearly smacked himself at his own stupidity.

He morphed into a brown recluse (or rather, green recluse) spider and began jumping from bits of the web to others until he reached Raven. Arachne was poised to sink her fangs, dripping poison, into Raven's flesh; Beast Boy morphed into a kangaroo and kicked the spider-lady off of Raven and far back into the web. He then turned back into a human and freed Raven's lips and the rest of her, pulling her towards the big tree.

Raven floated up beside him and he pulled an old photo out from the clutches of what seemed to be a decaying body of a woman.

"Rae, you need to disguise yourself as this woman! Do it quick, she was Arachne's mom and I think she might be the only one that can stop her!"

"Disguise myse... Beast Boy, that's magic I might not be able to..." Raven said nervously, but suddenly they heard the shriek of Arachne who seemed to be coming back and more rageful than ever.

"Ugh, fine, I'll try" Raven muttered. She took the photo in her hand and began to chant something in a language Beast Boy couldn't understand, and all of a sudden she grew silent. Her eyes began to glow black, and she reached up with her now black energy encased hands to cover her face. She pushed her hands back, and where they left there was now pale cream colored skin and dark brown hair. Raven's hands continued to pass along her scalp, the hair growing longer as she pushed back with the magic.

She shook out her new hair, her eyes losing the glow but now appearing dark brown. With another wave of magic, her clothes morphed into the ones the dead woman was wearing.

"I will enjoy all of you, whether you run from me or not!" Arachne hissed, turning the corner to find them. Her black eyes widened and she stopped in her charge.

"Mother!"

"Yes." Raven said, using a voice that did not belong to her.

"I.. I thought..."

"You thought wrong. Now leave this place, leave your web-weaving ways behind once and for all" Raven continued.

"I can't believe you're okay... I thought I had..."

"You did. I forgive you" Raven said.

"Oh... Oh, mother!" Arachne's legs suddenly retreated back into her dress, which began to lighten until it was white and glowing; her black hair fanned around her in a halo, and her smiling face was covered in tears as she ascended into the beyond.

"Rae?" Beast Boy said cautiously, addressing the still-floating body of his girlfriend who did not look like her at the moment. Her back was to him, and her head hung tiredly. The landscape around them had begun to fade.

"Uhnn..." she groaned, her voice returning to her own as she literally shook the magic off of her and her clothes reverted back to her uniform. The hair shot back into her skull and as she shook out the color it became violet again, her eyes turning into amethysts once more.

"Rae, you ok?" Beast Boy asked, the mist surrounding them and the tree disintegrating as they began to be transported back to the Mausoleum.

"HEY! Guys, you forget someone?" Edaniel whimpered from the distance. Raven's arm reached out automatically and a wave of her black magic crackled and grabbed Edaniel from the disappearing tree.

As they reached the entrance to the vault and pulled themselves out of it, Beast Boy turned once more to look at his girlfriend.

"Raven, talk to me" he said, turning her around to take her by the shoulders and force her to look at him. She brought her eyes to his, a little tiredly.

"I've never successfully managed a glamour like that before" she offered. "It's some dark magic, especially if you're masking yourself as someone who's dead. Witchcraft, even" she continued. "Beast Boy, you asked me to do that and it was the only thing I could think of to save us... To save you" she said, a hint of fear in her voice.

"Rae, you're not a witch!" Beast Boy replied.

"I beg to differ" Edaniel muttered, and Beast Boy promptly kicked him.

"Listen, what you did back there was awesome! You used your magic to keep a crazy ghost who had morphed into something horrible from devouring us, which I am extremely grateful for. And you know what else I'd be grateful for right about now?"

"Hm?"

"A kiss" he said, and before she could so much as protest, he had joined their lips in a tender sign of affection that had all her worries melting away.

"Ok, let's go home and sleep now, please?" he begged after parting for air.

"Whatever you say, Beast Boy" she replied. "Just remember that we have work tomorrow so don't get all pissy if I wake you up too early."

"Awww, Rae! But I wanted to stay up late... Y'know, with you! Also, how did you know what to say to Arachne when she thought you were her mom?"

"Intuition. I just guessed" Raven shrugged.

"Ahhh, my girlfriend's a fuckin' genius!" Beast Boy said, picking her up and twirling her around before she transported them back to St. Lyman's with a small wave to Edaniel.

* * *

Yep, here's a normal length chapter for you guys! I'm hoping to perhaps get another one or two out before I leave the country for a month and a half on Tuesday, but if I can't please don't hate me. I'll be doing my best to update, maybe I'll get a chapter or two out in the next month but I can't promise anything. So until this weekend's over, we're still in game... But once July rolls around, this story (and myself) will be on summer break until I get back!

I also have planned out a lovely little surprise for you guys, so perhaps with the next posting of the following chapter I may release it before I leave... Yet if I can't I'll work on that some more before putting it out there. It's something I've always wanted to do with a story, and not may people I think have done similar things, so I'm hopeful that my readers will take advantage of and partake in this mysterious surprise... :)

Without further ado, I salute my reviewers Kayla and assassin x 007 for reviewing the previous chapter!


	11. The Unmasking

I do not own Teen Titans, nor do I own Bizenghast. They belong to their respective owners, and all I can claim credit for are the concepts presented in this story. For future reference, all non DC Comics-verse scenarios depicted in the story are of my own invention.

CHAPTER WARNING: Graphic & descriptive violence; mild language

* * *

The Sunken Mausoleum - Ch. 11

For all intents and purposes, Rachel Roth was doing her duties and restacking a bunch of books onto the shelves of the quite ample Bizenghast Library. More and more of the students at the school were showing up as of late, as it seemed to be the time period of midterms and they frantically researched and looked up materials for study.

However, as Rachel worked to help keep some semblance of order among the books, there was a slight problem. The leery looks that Raven, er, Rachel was getting from the two boys in the library were not helping her concentration in the slightest. She could feel their lusty emotions washing over her, especially since she was the subject of them.

"Mmm, she's quite a looker though" she heard one of them whisper.

"Yeah, she really does look like that Dinah girl though... I still can't believe she's dead."

"Yeah, her funeral was pretty depressing so I've heard. My uncle was the doctor that took care of her... She was a total nutso."

Raven's eyes widened at this piece of information. She whirled around and marcher over to where the two boys were standing.

"What do you mean, funeral? I thought the bodies went missing?" she said curtly.

The boys looked taken aback, perhaps at being caught talking about it yet also because Raven had confronted them so suddenly and without much protest.

"Uh... Well, Vincent's never been found. Everyone's assuming he died since when his parents came back from their holiday they said that they hadn't seen him and he hadn't gone to join them like Dinah had said" the first boy said slowly.

"Yeah, well, she WAS found. Had a funeral and everything, her aunt was sobbing her eyes out and my uncle told me that she moved away the next day... Why did you think that she was gone, anyway? Who told you that the bodies were BOTH missing, cute thing?" the boy said, not hesitating to remember that he had been admiring her a moment before.

"Nobody. I thought that was the story, I guess I got mixed up." Raven said bluntly, but the wheels in her mind were turning. 'Mrs. Tucker was the one that told me BOTH the bodies went missing... What could that mean? Was it because she had died before Dinah, and only knew about Vincent's disappearance?' she thought, not realizing that the two boys were now resuming their leering.

"You're hot when you think so hard" the first boy said, running his eyes up and down her body. She rolled her eyes and walked away from them and back to the shelf she was organizing. She stood on her tiptoes trying to place a book on a particularly high shelf, frowning. 'If I could use my powers right now this wouldn't be a problem... Dammit, why am I so short?!'

"Mmm, baby, yeah, stretch like that so we can see your ass real good" the boy continued. Raven's nerves were beginning to fry, and she knew that the next thing coming out of her mouth would probably not be so nice. She chose to ignore the taunt and resumed struggling with the book, about to give up and get the ladder.

"Or how about we help you out, hmm?" they boys had suddenly materialized behind her, blocking her off and from both sides. In her resolve to ignore them she hadn't even heard them get up and quietly slink over to her.

"Back off, I'm working" she hissed.

"Why don't you back it up instead, honey?" one of them said, coming up behind her and pressing up against her while the other one made to go for her front.

"Alright, that's it. Az-"

"DUDES! GET THE HELL AWAY FROM MY GIRLFRIEND!"

Their heads whipped around to face a severely pissed off Garfield Logan, who looked just about ready to breathe fire and raise some more Cain while he was at it. Raven was thankful he had shown up, as the next words from her lips would have been her mantra and she would have blown their cover that way. 'I really need to meditate... Get control of my temper...'

Beast Boy had strode up to the boys, who until then had not fully disengaged from their proximity to Raven; he did not like that.

"Back. It. Up." he growled, pulling Raven towards him by her arm and simultaneously letting them know that yes, he HAD heard what sorts of lewd things they were telling his woman.

"Calm down, we were just playing..." one of them said as he backed up. Beast Boy glared daggers at him, and he raised his hands in defeat.

"Rae, I came to get you so we could go home. It's late" he said to his girlfriend, who looked up at him with a mix of gratitude and relief.

"Alright, I'll go punch out" she said, sending a final death glare to the two boys before placing the book in Beast Boy's hand. "That one goes up there. You're taller than me now, can you get it?" she said, squeezing his hand as she left his side; she wasn't too happy to admit that finally Beast Boy was taller than her, but then again it made their situation as a couple much more pleasant.

Beast Boy's day at work was much less eventful, and as they walked home a few minutes later he pondered over the strangest thing that had happened to him that day: while going through the routine at the antiques shop, which involved going through the empty houses and removing the furniture for the most part, he had come across a curious old wardrobe that was attached firmly to the wall. He had thought about calling his boss over to help him with it, but before he did he opened it to check and make sure nothing was in it.

Inside, he had found a single golden coin wedged into the back corner. Picking it up and twirling it between his fingers, he gasped as he recognized the clock-bug symbol from the book and the Mausoleum on one side of the gold. He knew this now to be the symbol of the Mausoleum, it's seal and identifier when it came to all of the Guilds.

He wondered once again the meaning behind the placement of the symbol, what it could mean to the creature plaguing the Titans' investigation, and what on earth it was doing in the wardrobe of an abandoned house in the outskirts of the town. His stomach growling loudly reminded him of dinner, however, and so he pocketed the coin without much thought except that of heading over to the library in order to pick up Raven. Needless to say, what he found happening in the library caused the little gold coin to vanish completely from his mind until much later.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

That night was a sort of milestone for the two Titans as they approached the Mausoleum. They had completed their twentieth vault the previous night with Edaniel's help, and they were supposedly going to meet his brother for help during this night's vault.

"Why didn't he come to meet us last night like Edaniel did when we finished our tenth?" Beast Boy asked Raven as they walked up towards the Hooded Angel.

"I bet they aren't required to meet us that night, you know how Edaniel has a thing for theatrics" Raven replied, unhooking the golden bracelet from her wrist and placing it on the Angel's platter. Beast Boy briefly thought of the coin he had found that day, still in his pants pocket back at St. Lyman's. The door opened then, and they descended into the Mausoleum.

Edaniel was waiting for them, in human form. He sat upon a slouchy looking divan in the middle of the room; in his hand was what looked like a tabloid magazine, which he was leafing through by making use of a smallish knife to turn the pages. Beast Boy stopped short.

"Uhh, Edaniel? Why do you have a knife?" he said warily.

"That's because the vaults from this one onward are going to be much more taxing and violent" a new voice answered before Edaniel had the time to look up.

A tall, dark stranger emerged briskly from the shadows; dark as his brother was fair, his skin was tanned to the point of looking brown and his curly long black hair was gathered loosely at the nape of his neck and tied with a golden colored ribbon.

He wore an extremely well fitted armor, all black with golden embellishment; it seemed to be a chest plate with arm coverings that covered everything, including his hands which were gloved; one of these arm plates was more highly covered in the golden markings. 'Perhaps runes of some sort?' Raven thought, studying him. From the bottom of the chest plate (which only covered his pectorals, much like Edaniel's metrosexual cardigan thing) a long flowing fabric extended up until his mid-thighs. The material seemed to glisten, as if it were made of spider-silk.

He wore simple black pinstriped pants which were mostly covered by his knee-high armored boots, made of the same material and embellished similarly as his armor.

Like his brother, his ears were pointed and elfin, however his eyes were catlike much in the same way as Jinx's. Strapped to his side was an ornate sword with a large ruby encrusted in the blade's grip. All in all, he looked much more a warrior than his brother.

"Guys, this is Edrear! He's the one you can use to fight all those monsters and stuff with, since as I've said many times before he's all martial-artsy and stuff" Edaniel said, hopping up off the divan and tossing aside his little magazine which vanished with a pop of sulfuric magic.

"Oh, so he's like Robin? All ninja master?" Beast Boy quipped, stepping forward a bit to study Edrear better.

"No, I am nothing like you and your little friends" Edrear said with almost a snarl. Beast Boy was taken aback, but did not flinch.

"Dude, chill! What's up with him anyway?" he asked to no one in particular. Raven squinted her eyes a bit, trying to focus on Edrear's emotional sphere. It was difficult to do, of course, because the Tower Guards were all made up of bits of other people's souls and did not have their own personal empathic frequency. Without too much effort, however, Raven detected high flares of resentment and a steely determination to push them both away, in an attempt to prevent bonding.

"It's fine, Beast Boy. No one said we needed to be best friends with these guys." Raven's cold tone surprised the changeling, but he noticed Edrear's eyes narrow a bit at the comment; he remained silent.

"Well, guys, that was awkward enough. Let's pick a vault and get on with it!" Edaniel said, for the first time looking a bit perturbed by something. While Raven marched determinately towards the wall of riddles with Edrear not too far behind her, Edaniel and Beast Boy followed at a slower pace.

"He's not normally this informal and rude, don't take it personally... I think he's still upset that Dinah and Vincent vanished" Edaniel whispered. Beast Boy frowned.

"They were Tower Guards too, right? What about your sisters then?" Beast Boy asked back.

"They were still around, tending to the Mausoleum duties instead of helping the new hires. It's in the contract... You either become a cleaner or get assimilated into the Mausoleum once you die on the job."

"WHAT!?" Beast Boy yelped. Raven and Edrear turned sharply at the outburst, Edrear even going as far as to clutch the handle of his sword. Beast Boy waved them off with an awkward grin. "I didn't know there was a GOOD ending to death in here... And I was thinking the whole time I'd just become a green skinned bag of bones on a fishhook..."

"Well, we don't exactly advertise it because then we don't have much to threaten you with, do we? Plus it's not up to us, but the Mausoleum... It chooses for you, based on the actions taken leading up to death" Edaniel said with a little smile that was highly out of place when considering the topic.

"If you're quite finished" Raven said suddenly with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, yeah, riddles, ok..." Beast Boy mumbled, walking over to read them better. As he looked them over, he suddenly did a double take. "Rae... Does this one look, well... Interesting to you?"

"I wonder how a robin hears?

I never yet have seen his ears.

But I have seen him tip his head

Beaten upon until he was dead."

Raven bit her lip as she hoped with all her heart what she had just read was not in fact what they were going to expect in that vault.

"Might as well check it out... We'll have to do this eventually" Beast Boy sighed. He reached over and grabbed her hand, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Edrear stiffen; at that same moment, Raven felt his emotions spike into a mixture of sorrow and jealousy.

"High ho, High ho, let's free the ghosties' souls, doo doo doo doo do doo do dooooo HIGH HO!" Edaniel sang as he skipped towards the doors without a care in the world, it seemed. Raven and Edrear rolled their eyes while Beast Boy suppressed a laugh.

They perused the graveyard for about ten minuted before coming across it. The headstone itself was so small that Beast Boy figured he had passed it a few times before even noticing it was there.

On the ground was a little stone figure of a bird, Beast Boy knew it was a robin of course (having the power to change into one helped him recognize it instantly). Something was different, of course, and Beast Boy's heart gave a tug as he recognized what it was. The bird's eyes were covered by a small mask, a mask that a certain team leader of theirs also wore quite well.

A metal crowbar lay next to the bird, and Beast Boy's sick feeling only seemed to grow as he knew what he had to do in order to open the vault. He picked up the crowbar, steeling himself.

He swung the crowbar and with a sharp metal THWACK knocked part of the bird's head clean off. As the bits crumbled off and into dust, he felt Raven's hand on his shoulder, squeezing reassuringly. The vault opened, a spiral staircase descending around the small, now broken, stone figurine.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

The smoke cleared and the Titans immediately knew that they were in Gotham. Raven's senses were on high alert, Beast Boy's hand clutched tightly in hers as they scanned the streets. Edaniel and Edrear were silent forces behind them, shadowing their every step as they began to slink through the shadows.

"Uhh... Something tells me you know more about this dream than we do" Edaniel whispered. Edrear simply surveyed in silence.

"Yeah, well, we aren't happy to be here, nor are we even worthy of being in his dream. Let's just find him and hope for the best" Raven said in her monotone, but her voice cracked a little bit towards the end. Beast Boy gave her hand a squeeze as they pressed on.

The side streets began to give way to smoky yet larger streets, with sketchy figures skulking in the corners and seeming to avoid them for the most part, as if they weren't even there. They reached a rather large alleyway, and suddenly a swift movement caught Beast Boy's sharp senses. He whirled around to catch a sharp kick to the face, sending him sprawling.

"Beast Boy!" Raven shouted, her hands already crackling with magic that grabbed her attacker.

"Hey, put me down!" a squeaky, girly voice cried out. "Lemme go, you witch! My puddin' will be here to deal with you if ya don't!"

"Harley, nice to see you too" Raven quipped, squeezing her grip tighter around the Joker's favorite little lackey. The Harlequin flinched as the black magic squeezed her and stole some of her breath.

"What're you running from, heh?" Beast Boy managed to get out; he had stood up by this point, rubbing his jaw a little from where her boot had connected with his face.

"That would be me."

The empath and the changeling turned swiftly towards the voice that had spoken; Jason Todd, now known as the second Robin emerged confidently from the shadows, a smirk on his young face. "Heya, Titans. You can give her to me, it'll be fine!"

"Jaso-"

"SHHHH!" he frantically cut Beast Boy off. "Shut up! We're in the presence of a villain!"

The Titans had almost forgotten that this was just a dream, Jason's own nightmares come back to haunt his spirit endlessly. Raven swallowed thickly.

"Ro...Robin, listen. You can have her if only you'll just talk to us for a bit after you deal with her, put her in jail or whatever" she said.

"What for? Don't you have your own city to protect? I got this!" Jason said with a wave of his hand, clearly annoyed that the Titans wanted to step in on his territory and capture his villains and tell him what to do.

"You sure about that, little guy?"

The two Titans' blood froze as they recognized the new voice. No one could mistake it.

The Joker had arrived, and he had brought about a dozen of his men with him. Something about him in Jason's dream made him much more menacing, much more horribly supernatural; instead of a simple chemical imbalance in his facial features, there were visibly twisted aspects to his dream-state. His eyes glistened with a toxic light, while his hair was much more unkempt than his traditional polished 'do. The trademark purple suit was present, yet he seemed in general much bigger and stronger as a result. Lanky and lean, he towered over all of his thugs.

The smile, however, was the most horrible. His face was its traditional white pallor, his eyebrows raised in a menacing perpetual gleeful delirium; the smile, red as blood, stretched across lips that parted to reveal long serrated scars that extended his smile to the edges of his face as if he had put them there himself with a badly sharpened knife.

"Titans, welcome to our little get-together" he spoke, sending more chills down Beast Boy's spine. "And although I don't know who you two are, I'm sure we'll become QUITE good friends..." he continued in reference to Edrear and Edaniel, who until now had seemed to be frozen in a stupor. "Now, then..."

"Shall we dance?"

Jason's dream exploded. The henchmen darted left and right, drawing guns and clubs, baseball bats and blades; Jason himself seemed to literally be flying left and right, throwing bird-a-rangs and kicking and punching, slashing with his blade all at once. Raven threw Harley into a dumpster where she landed with a squeal, and she levitated a car from the street to place on top of it so she couldn't get out; Beast Boy morphed into a tiger and began slashing and biting the thugs while Edrear had drawn his sword and took on two who had what looked like katanas.

"They're not real, they're just figments of the dream!" Edaniel said, stabbing one of them in the thigh with his dagger and indicating quickly as his opponent started to smoke.

"Kill them, they won't feel a thing!" Edrear called out, promptly slashing through the two he was battling with the supreme ease and skill of a trained warrior and heading straight for two more as they burst into inky black smoke that rejoined with the dreamscape.

Jason himself seemed to not notice, too intent on fighting the Joker himself. He seemed much too confident, much too arrogant, and Raven desperately slashed through the Joker's henchmen with her magic in order to reach him and maybe assist him. 'Perhaps he wants to defeat him, just once? Maybe that's what the dream's about...'

A sudden flash of movement and a sharp kick caused the Joker to be hurtled into the wall opposite her, and she whirled around to face his attacker. Batman himself had emerged from the side street, a frown on his face.

"Robin, I told you this was too dangerous for you to do alone. You needed me with you!" the Dark Knight growled at his young apprentice. Jason flared up, fists clenching.

"I can handle it by myself! You don't have any faith in me!" he spat back.

"You treat life like a game, Jason!" Batman bellowed, his deep voice echoing around the dream and causing the Titans to flinch. How many times did their own Robin scold them with similar words?

"Life IS a game!" Jason screamed, shattering their environment, Batman's figure splitting clean down the middle as everything melted away. Raven rushed over to Beast Boy, who was sporting a split lip courtesy of one of the thugs. Edaniel and Edrear were close behind her, huddling around in a cluster while the dream reshaped itself.

It was now hot, too hot. They were in a warehouse, and a blonde woman struggled against her bonds in the corner, and the Titans recognized her from the reports as Jason's own mother Sheila; Jason's arms were tied behind his back and he lay on the floor, unconscious but about to come to his senses. The Titans and the Tower Guards were stationed behind a few large crates, watching in horror as the Joker emerged brandishing a large metal crowbar. He remained the horrible and monstrous dream Joker, constructed from the horrors and fears of Jason's own mind. Jason was awake now.

"This is going to hurt you a lot more than it's going to hurt me!" the Joker cackled, and began to beat Jason with no mercy. Raven's hands flew to her mouth, a silent scream trapped in her throat as she and Beast Boy witnessed the murder of one of their closest friends' successors. Edaniel was pale, while Edrear looked stricken.

The Joker began to laugh in earnest at the feeble cries coming from Jason, his laughter causing the twisted grin on his face to split open at the scars, blood raining down with bits of flesh that mixed with that of Jason as it scraped off his bones with each hit of the crowbar.

"Can't hear you, must be a collapsed lung... Hard on the breathing, eh?" the Joker wheezed, laughing maniacally as he delivered a sharp thwack to the skull of the young Robin, whose mother Sheila screamed from the corner she was tied in.

"We can't let this happen, he's beating the shit out of him!" Beast Boy hissed frantically, about to leap to his feet and confront the Joker.

"No" Raven managed, pulling at his arm. "He... He died like this, in here. We just have to watch."

"Like hell we do!" Beast Boy cried, his heart constricting as a crack of bone splitting echoed throughout the warehouse. Edaniel shook his head.

"Some dreams are like this. Some ghosts have deeper issues that we can't fix, we just have to let it play out until the solution becomes apparent. Sometimes the ghost does all the work for us, in cases like this for example."

Beast Boy felt horrible, and glared over at Edrear simply because he didn't know what else to do. To his surprise, the normally stony-faced Tower Guard had an expression that clearly betrayed sorrow and pain as he watched the young boy get beaten to death.

"You... You knew him?" he whispered softly. Raven nodded. "I... I suppose the best thing to say is that I am sorry, truly. This must be difficult for you to endure."

The Titans were shocked by Edrear's sudden change in demeanor towards them, but they let it be. The Joker had tossed the bloody crowbar to the side, where it landed with a clang. With a final chorus of raucous laughter, he set the bomb that the two Titans knew was coming and took his leave. Jason was twitching feebly on the ground, pools of blood becoming larger and a deeper scarlet as he lost blood from all the broken points of his body.

Raven and Beast Boy then emerged from behind the crate, not being able to stand it any longer. Jason looked at them through puffy eyes and a broken mask; they were able to see the teary blues of his eyes.

"Jason, we're working to avenge you as we speak." Raven's words were soft and gentle; she had knelt by his head, stroking his hair from his forehead. Beast Boy knelt on the other side of him and freed his hands from the bonds, and they fell limply to his sides.

"I... failed... I was stupid" Jason coughed through mouthfuls of blood and broken teeth.

"No, never think that for a minute!" Beast Boy said fiercely. "You were headstrong and rash, smart and agile... Like our Robin, like Batman himself. You made them both so proud... You were like a son to Batman, and he's fighting his hardest to bring the Joker to justice. He's not going to let that bastard get away with this" Beast Boy's words seemed to have some effect on Jason, as his hand gripped the changeling's a little more tightly.

"Rest now, Jason. Be at peace, and know that there are many who love you here that want you to be happy" Raven continued, and Beast Boy looked away from the dying Robin in order to lock eyes briefly with her. She was at her most beautiful, he thought, feeling so much for others at all times and so pure was her emotion that it coursed through her very being and electrified him from only a few inches away.

Jason seemed to feel it, too, as he smiled through his pain and suddenly burst into a ray of light, his angelic form appearing in place of the broken body lying between the Titans. He was clad in his uniform, looking confident and with a serene smile on his face. He ascended into brighter light, vanishing, just as the bomb timer ticked to it's last number and exploded.

Beast Boy dove and grabbed Raven, pushing her to the wall of the warehouse and covering her with most of his body as they were consumed in fire and heat.

When he opened his eyes, she was staring back at him and panting a little, and Beast Boy realized that she had cocooned them in a bubble of black magic that was no longer necessary as they had re-emerged in the entrance to the vault. Edaniel and Edrear were smooshed in the far corner within their own bubble, flailing and wiggling in order to free themselves.

Raven waved her hand and the magic was gone, yet she remained in Beast Boy's embrace. She was shaking a little, her hands coming to clutch his arms for support as she breathed in order to calm her emotions, which were going into overload.

"Rae..?" he began tentatively.

"Brother, you did not tell me that these human agents were beings with powers of their own! Not to mention a demoness!" Edrear could be heard berating his brother from the other side of the vault entrance.

"What of it? They're cute!" Edaniel defended.

"Her powers could interfere with the ghost dreams in ways never before experienced by the Guilds! We employ humans in order to better connect with the part of the souls that once had life, not connect also with their warped and undead immortal soul, or had you forgotten?" Edrear hissed.

"It's my contract, so any problems you have you can take up with me." Beast Boy had turned his head slightly, eyes narrowed at the quarreling Tower Guards.

"You are both extra-ordinary humans, and in her case she has the potential to connect to the spirit world in ways not natural to the process of freeing the ghosts; there could be consequences" Edrear said plainly. Beast Boy opened his mouth to speak again, but Edrear held up his hand. "I would like to add that you both handled the dream quite formidably, and I am doubtful that any other human agent would have been able to understand his soul in the way that you did."

With that, Edrear lifted himself gracefully from the vault without even taking the spiral stairs. "And please, try to avoid using your demon magic on me. If makes me feel, how do they put it?... Uncomfortable."And he walked off.

Edaniel turned to the couple, expecting Raven to blow up in anger or something; instead he found them as engrossed in each other as two people could be. Raven was still shaking, unshed tears glistening on her violet eyes as the emotions of the day coursed through her and pumped through her nervous system like live wires. Beast Boy held her close to him but with enough room to see her face and analyze the situation. She was in some sort of empathic trance, and so he picked her up gently and began carrying her out of the vault's entrance.

"Yeah, ok, I thought that a graveyard was too weird even for YOU guys to start making out in. Although making out is wonderful... Say, wanna make out, green bean? She's so out of it I doubt she'd mind" Edaniel said in a stream of words that Beast Boy barely listened to as he set Raven down on the grass.

"Shut up, Edaniel."

"Fine, fine. Listen, dudes, I just gotta say what a pleasure it's been working with you this evening... See you tomorrow, and you'd better bring me some pancake batter along with that gold!"

With a silly little wave, he followed after his brother back into the depths of the Mausoleum. Beast Boy sighed, crouching in front of Raven who seemed to see him finally in the light of the moon. She lifted her arms and slowly pulled him in for a tight hug, the tears shining on her eyes finally falling.

"I never do this often... I was just so scared and sad for him, and then the explosion made me think of what could happen if I had lost you in a similar way... Sorry, I'm being stupid" Raven muttered softly, and Beast Boy in turn gently pulled away from her hug and placed a sweet kiss on her lips. She gasped, the flood of emotion to her senses causing her to tingle all over and nearly shudder.

"Raven, you're definitely not stupid. Don't be ridiculous." He grinned at her, and picked her up again, twirling her around before setting her down on her feet shakily. "Let's go home and sleep it off, ok? We have work tomorrow!"

"When did you become the responsible one?" she laughed a little, before taking his hand in hers and transporting them back to their makeshift home in Bizenghast.

* * *

HEY GUYS. I'm back! In honor of 2,360 combined views on Fanfiction, I suppose I'll update for you all! THANKS SO MUCH FOR ALL THE LOVE!

Sorry for the long-ish wait for this chapter, but I had to get back into the groover of life which made writing straight up until the end/until I was satisfied with this outcome quite difficult.

There you have it, Jason Todd's ghost dream. Didn't expect that one, huh? Although the robin thing might have given the point away, I'm hoping that the entire concept of his having a dream be something completely wonderful and new to you all :)

Speaking of robins, the poem was one I found on the internet and altered because I'm lazy. I'd give credit where credit is due but the place I found it had no author.

The amazing wonderful surprise is posted officially! It's sort of a welcome back to this story present, or welcome to this story to all the new readers!

Basically what I've created here is an interactive experience: I've made a compilation playlist of music that serves as a soundtrack to the story itself thus far, as of this very chapter. You can download the playlist here (replacing the spaces with dots... if that's too confusing, I've posted a link to the download on my profile as well!):

www mediafire com /folder/rfbpuxaohva10/Music

None of the songs on the playlist belong to me, they are taken from many fantastic film/TV scores and soundtracks that I happen to own and may have been listening to as I wrote chapters of this story. Please check it out and give it a listen, I know that people's reading speeds may or may not be up to par in terms of velocity of the music... But you can listen to it anyway during the scenes I described in the song, and it fits rather nicely if I do say so myself!

I've renamed each song in the playlist to match the scenes of the story, so if you feel like you recognize them never fear! In the download folder I've attached a list of the new name, original name, and composer/artist. If you also happen to have iTunes and are uploading the songs into that, then you'll be able to see the original names if you click on the 'get info' button.

Also included in the folder is the cover art (made by me), the PDF document of the songs list, and a ZIP folder with all of the included things if you don't feel like downloading everything individually.

Hope you give it a listen, it really does add to the overall reading experience!

Shoutouts to my returning reviewers: Cuervos Bestia, Kayla, Reaper of Heroes, Juliegirl22, and krikanalo.

Thanks to my new reviewers: iamking, Zurrioth, and boony832 :)


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